Wow, you must be changing A LOT of light bulbs to go though hundreds of dollars in bulbs per
fixture every year :-\, seriously?!? In reality it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself to go
LED, which may end up being a big mistake; or as I like to say “A career limiting move”.
LED’s take more than one
channel to operate, unlike dimmers. Some could take 8~9, most take 5~7 unless you run in 3
channel mode. It’s possible your school purchased a turn key
system with 36 lights and a 36
channel board in which case you’re out of luck. And trying to run them on a board not designed for intelligent light is a nightmare. An
ION lighting board, nicely dressed, can be had for under 12K (just shot your wad there) where as a Cognito goes for under 3K but doesn’t lend itself to a teaching environment.
I would lean to upgrading your
conventional lights to S4’s and see how much you have after that. Next would be infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure! Find out what do you need to take your
system beyond the next step as well as what your limitations are (
power, distribution,
network?). Take your time and educate yourself. Remember that limitations are your best ally in design/upgrade. Once you know where the walls of your sandbox are you know where you can
play. Your budget is going to limit you to used gear, either locally or over the web, or DJ quality lighting (Chauvet DJ, American DJ).
So take a break, step away from the
LED’s and look around first. You’ll be much happier in the long run.