And I think that's perfectly fair. But our school
system is impenetrably armored about such things. Effectively, the rule is, "Unless our one-and-only approved vendor tells us we must have it, we do not buy it. If they do tell us we must have it, we buy it from them and only them. After that, no one is authorized to use it for any purpose."
Example: The same middle school has an architectural control
processor is part of its
system (mostly so wall switches can control the
house lights, I think). The ACP is controlled by a small
LCD touch-screen. The
screen can lock out some of the wall switches. Well, somehow, someone had fussed with it in such a way that, indeed, the wall switches were locked out and the
house lights were up full with no way to dim them. A couple of hours before she was going to open the
play for this summer's drama camp, the drama coach called me up to ask if I remembered how to deal with this problem (since I was the one who coped with it last summer, being part of the camp itself at the time). I told her how to do it, but that the ACP
screen tends to be locked behind a
clear cover. She said that was no problem as she had gotten the janitor to pick the lock for her.
Let that sink in: The authorized drama coach was on the verge of having to cancel a show because the ACP control panel was locked behind a door for which no one at the school had the key, but she saved it at the last minute by having a janitor pick that lock and calling the only person (who has no official connection to the school) she knew who could tell her how to operate the ACP controls (since no one at the school knew how to do it). These are the same people who wouldn't let us buy a cheap, working alternative to this
system so the kids could actually learn something.
It's things like that which ultimately caused me to just give up on them and offer my help to others.
