Contracts with school districts? Your thoughts

[iladelf]

I've been told recently that one of the more-attractive places to look for steady computer business is getting contracts with local school districts (grade, middle, junior high, high school) to repair and maintain their computers. My problems are twofold; how do you do so when you are a one-man shop, and how do you determine what to charge? I mean, is it a flat fee for the year, or do you charge by the month?

Look forward to your comments.

[gunslinger]

Around here (Tennessee) its really a nonissue, the schools almost always hire in house. That way they can put some poor guy on salary and get away with paying him less than half what a good computer tech should make. The guy that does the job in my county makes about $40,000 a year. That sounds pretty good until you understand that he is admin over grades k-12, thats over 600 systems including 2 laptop labs. This guy is on call 24-7 and puts in hours that make me cringe. Networking issue? virus? printer down again? It all falls to this one guy. The school systems have a certain precent of funds to allocate to computers/tech each year. The reason is this: lets say all goes well this year and most of the computer work needed is just setting up new systems and maintenance. But, lets say next year 30-40 systems break or need replaced ( not uncommon at all in schools ) and the school gets a virus. Now you are talking some serious man hours and serious money too if they have to call a real computer tech. If they only have $50,000 in the buget for computers/tech they can't call in someone but if they have this one guy they can work 80 hours a week for the same $40,000 a year no matter what happens, ah now we are getting somewhere. They end up paying him a few bucks an hour and they don't go over buget. Now I'm not saying all school systems are like this, but the ones around here are. By the way my wife is a school teacher and I have seen the local buget, so this comes stright from the source.

[iladelf]

So basically, gunslinger, you're saying that it really doesn't "pay" to get in cozy with these school districts, because of a)all the extra work after hours and b)for little pay?

My understanding (from what I've seen) is that most school districts have seemingly "bankers hours", and that even the highest administration people don't work too often after hours. Therefore, I wouldn't think that being on call 24/7 would be an issue. As we all know, most of these issues can wait until either a)the next morning or b)the next business day.

Now, if an entire network or server goes down, well...that's another story.

[focuz]

The Michigan school systems are the same way, buts theirs actually 3 techs instead of one (in my city anyways). Only the admin makes up to $40,000 / year, the other 2 make less more like 30 or 35 / year. Yeah they only work 8 months out of the year, but when school is running their putting in about 45+ hours every week.

I would say if you can get a decent per hour contract then your good to go for the contract, but I wouldn't setup any month by month basis as they will start to take advantage of your services as they have so many systems that can go bad.

[The Goatboy]

Along the lines of what focuz said, if you can agree on an hourly wage, and then get them to buy a "bank of hours" then you should be fine. Example, you say I want $50/hour and the minimum purchase is 40 hours, then they need to pay 2K, and payment is due up front. when the bank of hours is exhausted, then they have the option to buy more hours, or if you aren't happy with the school, it also gives you an out when the hours are used up. These numbers are just an example, don't take them as gospel.

[SandTech]

Connecticut the same, my city has two techs.

[cmonova]

Schools are very hard to get into. But, on the other had private schools are not as hard. They do their own funding and typically try to hire within from students parents/etc. If you can get in with them and give a good price you have a good shot.

[gunslinger]

So basically, gunslinger, you're saying that it really doesn't "pay" to get in cozy with these school districts, because of a)all the extra work after hours and b)for little pay?


Yep, thats what I'm saying.