Linux in Education: Athens (Michigan) Schools

One of the things I love to hear about is success stories of Linux in education, especially in the K12 arena.  Early adoption and exposure to Linux and Open Source has the very positive effect of opening the horizons of these students to the vast array of options available to them.

But the number of instances that you hear of in regards to actual full on Linux and Open Source adoption in schools is few and far between, even though the number of schools supporting both is on the rise, albeit slowly.  That's why I was very pleased recently to hear about a local school just southwest of where I live that had taken to living life with the penguin.

That school was Athens Public Schools of Athens Michigan.  I managed to secure an interview with their chief of information systems, one Barry Shackelford.  Upon arriving at his humble little hut, a small, somewhat seasoned little masonry building, I was surprised to find a Free Software Foundation sticker emblazoned prominently on the window of the main door into the building.

That's a good sign in and of itself.  Upon entering, I was greeted by Barry and we talked for a while.  He's prior service military, having spent over 20 years in the Air Force, and a man with more degrees than his wall could hold.  Yet he was very down to earth and a lot of fun to talk with.  He started with Athens schools in 2004 and has been doing their IT work ever since.  His official title is "Technology Director" for the schools.

Upon looking around the main room of his little abode, I noticed that it was stacked to the ceiling with all kinds of computer parts.  Inquiring about them, he told me that they were all military surplus hardware that was given to them by the VA.  This included old used dell desktops, a whole huge wall full of Dell CRT monitors (all brand new, never out of the box!), and much more.

I asked about how much they had to work with each year, and was shocked to learn that they have a total budget of just $5000 (yes, 5k!) across all three schools.  Athens is an incredibly poor school, but they do amazing things with their tiny little budget.  Things I'm sure that some of the bigger schools and governments should take note of.  Especially the ones who waste money on proprietary software.

The primary Linux distribution used across all the machines in the school is SLED, aka Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop.  And we're not talking about a couple machines in a tiny little corner somewhere.  We're talking about 400+ student and employee computers and 28 servers spread across 3 locations, 5 labs, a smattering of offices, a couple classrooms, and some side rooms.  (the server room for the high school is actually located in an old book room. )

Now there are a few machines that are exceptions to that rule (3 Windows boxes for state mandated proprietary apps), but they're so in the minority as to be a speck of pepper in a salt mine.  But what, aside from budget reasons, was the primary motivator for them to make this move?  Well, Barry mostly.  It certainly wasn't the other teachers and staff there.  

When he first proposed moving the entire school over to Linux and Open Source applications, better than 90% of the people fought him on it.  And we're not talking about a little "I don't want to change" nonsense.  These people actually got in his face and yelled at him.

Of course, being ex-military, that had about as much effect on him as a puff of smoke on a rock.    There was also the nightmare of keeping up a lot of very expensive software licenses, all the maintenance requirements for the Windows machines, antivirus, anti-spyware, and much more.  So those two alone were big reasons for needing to switch.  

What's funniest is, despite all of the war and screaming that went on prior to the switch, one year later there wasn't a single dissenting voice in the entire school district.  Not one.  It's amazing what one year on Linux with FOSS apps can do.  

And speaking of FOSS apps, there's quite a few that they use, including Scribus, Open Office (Novell edition), Firefox, Untangle Firewall, and many more.  Most learning in the schools is actually done on the computers.  They even use an interesting Open Source server application called "Moodle" that is the spot on equivalent to the proprietary, and rather expensive Black Board software system.

The primary firewall system for all the locations is, as mentioned above, the Untangle Firewall.  It's literally a spot on equal, if not slightly better alternative to Cisco's Pix firewall.  Plus it's free and open source.  The school's login and authentication system uses the Novell Netware system, not because it's a better system than any others, but because it's more flexible than any other system, allowing a much greater control over all system permissions and security far beyond Active Directory, or even ldap.

Each of the computer labs are connected with a 3gbps fiber link going to gigabit fiber switches, so network speed is not a problem.  And the best part is, all that cabling, the switches, etc were all donated.  99% of what Athens uses is donated hardware.  But it's hardware that's perfect for their needs.  Some of the donors include the Air Force, State Farm, and the VA.

And the machines they have in the school aren't any kind of a slouch.  Most are 2.3ghz P4's or better, each with 2gb of ram and an 80gb HD.  It's really quite amazing to see all they have, and all they've done using little more than donated hardware, Linux and Open Source software, and a very tiny budget.  

All in all, Athens schools are a picture perfect example of how you don't need expensive proprietary hardware, big powerful machines, or even proprietary software to create the perfect learning environment, or to properly run a school.  As I said, the bigger schools would be wise to learn from Athens and use the example they've set as a guide to create their own Open Source learning environments.