Absolutely agree
There is more to this than reported.
I agree the School Board Superintendent is also an idiot, and I think the 
school board has been taken for a ride by the IT company the board hired.
Personally it sounds to me like the School Board Superintendent is so stupid 
she should get the sack too.
I suspect the School Board regard Seti as no more than a very stupid 
childish & worthless pursuit of "Little green Men"
Perhaps a few CPU's were damaged if the fins on their coolers were very very 
dirty (clogged with dust)and the case ventilation slots also clogged and the 
computer in a location without free air circulation.  (i.e. a worst case 
scenario)Very very unlikely that 2300 processors needed to be replaced!

Is there evidence that Birdwell is hiring freinds & family? Because that 
would put a very different perspective on her honesty.  In fact it would 
almost certainly mean she was deliberately & criminally misappropiating 
funds in an extremely negligent fashion.

Sounds like this IT bill ought to be investigated! If the IT company had to 
justify every item ot this extraordinary bill in court I would imagine they 
would very rapidly settle for much less.

I have to say that personally this story stinks of setup, personality clash, 
and as lot else besides, In the East Valley tribune report it states

"A longtime Higley Unified School District information technology director 
has lost his job and is under police investigation for taking computers 
home, downloading pornography and installing computer software throughout 
the district that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence."

Well:  what pornography did the guy download? Was it just girly pics? (young 
women with their shirts off, like is published openly in Rupert Murdoch's 
Sun newspaper hre in the UK. Or was it frank pornography?)
I guess that depends on local attitudes:-     In any case in a school job it 
would be very very silly to download anything at all riskee, assuming that 
Brad Niesluchowski was aware of local mores & sensitivity
I assume that with a first name like Brad he is born in USA.

"Gary Heston" <gheston@hiwaay.net> wrote in message 
news:IpidnVdCzPLFGYXWnZ2dnUVZ_o2dnZ2d@posted.hiwaay2...

In article <y1ZRm.63138$064.238@newsfe17.ams2>,
Skywise  <into@oblivion.nothing.com> wrote:

Skywise <into@oblivion.nothing.com> wrote in news:uqHRm.31983$ng.21816
@newsfe19.ams2:

What an idiot.

On second thought, I should back up. Seems there's a lot more to
this story than in the news.

Oh, he's definantly an idiot. Also, apparently a thief, insubordinate,
and not doing the job he's paid for.

On the other hand, the school board superintendent seems to be a major
idiot as well, clearly doesn't know what she's talking about and is
running off competent staff while hiring friends and family.

One of the articles mention them replacing a bunch of CPUs because S@H
had been running; that's nonsense. I had two dozen system running S@H
for a couple of years (my hardware, at home) and never had any CPUs
fail. And these weren't in any decent climate-controlled environemnt,
either. Replacing CPUs certainly wasn't necessary, if they actually
did it.

S@H also does _not_ require holes in a firewall; just normal Internet
access.

Their cost estimates are also grossly overblown, IMHO.

One of the tenets of S@H is to only run it on hardware for which you
have permission, which this guy clearly did not. For that, he deserves
a reprimand. If he stole equipment and downloaded porn, he deserved
firing. But I suspect there's far more to this that the story put forth
by the school system.


Gary

-- 
Gary Heston  gheston@hiwaay.net   http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
"Where large, expensive pieces of exotic woods are converted to valueless,
hard to dispose of sawdust, chips and scraps." Charlie B.s' definition of
woodworking.