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Anyone who has used more than one personal computer understands that a system seems to become obsolete sometime after the purchase but before it's first boot.

For a school district, this issue is compounded by the volume of computers it has to maintain. However, Dr. Anne Hyland, director of curriculum and instruction for Bexley City Schools, said the district is switching to a new operating system that will save the taxpayers a lot of money.

Hyland said Bexley will switch all of its computers over to Linux, an open-source operating system. Open source means that the code for the software is available for anyone to procure and manipulate, unlike Microsoft operating systems.

The district currently uses Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (ME), but the new computers the district is getting will not be compatible with ME.

This provided an opportunity for the district to evaluate software options, Hyland said.

"We began looking around and said, 'Well, if we go to the most current Microsoft product, how much would that cost?'" Hyland said.

Upgrading ME to Windows XP, a newer version of the popular operating system, would cost the district about $412,000, she said. That price would include purchasing new machines and upgrading software.

The technology budget for the district last year was $159,000, so the Linux licensing fee of 50 cents per user was a far cry from the six-figure cost for sticking with Microsoft.

Last spring, the district decided to avoid those costs and switch to Linux, which is much cheaper to maintain. Because the district is dropping Windows and picking up Linux, it can phase out older computers and the ME operating system in a more efficient way, Hyland said.

The plan is to load Linux and an operating system that mimics ME (a program known as an emulator) onto the school computers so that students can use established ME programs while district technology officials find suitable replacement programs that work on Linux. So far, one-third of the district computers are Linux-capable, she said.

This allows the district, which has only two information-technology (IT) employees, to replace computers as they become obsolete, instead of replacing them all at once, which would have been necessary if the district were to switch to Windows XP.

"The Microsoft upgrade was going to be way intensive on the network, so we came to the conclusion that we can't phase (new computers) in because of the way XP is constructed," Hyland said.

Although Windows XP requires security and anti-virus software to be loaded onto every computer, the way a Linux network operates allows for a more streamlined operation where network administrators can duplicate one particular system setup on many different machines.

Hyland said the district hopes to get all of its computers running Linux exclusively by 2010. By that time, administrators should have identified new Linux programs for Bexley students, including kindergartners. Hyland said she wants to get kindergartners started with a program that teaches typing so that Bexley students are familiar with technology early on.

"This is very important," she said. "We are in the 21st century here. Every student needs to be able to use technology, have a deep and broad knowledge of it and be flexible it its use."

In other district technology news, parents can expect to see a change in the software they use to monitor a child's grades.

The district currently uses a program called Centerpoint to keep track of the demographic information for all Bexley students, which includes grades, attendance record and athletics participation information.

Pearson Education, the company that owns Centerpoint, purchased a competitor's program called PowerSchool, and it offered Bexley a free upgrade to PowerSchool software if the district convert this year.

PowerSchool offers essentially the same features as Centerpoint, including a grade-checking tool for parents, but parents will have to be assigned a new user name and password for PowerSchool.

The program is expected to be ready next fall.