Homegrown Talent Keeps Tech. Repairs In-House

District technicians do company warranty work.

Every student at Alvarado Junior High attends class with a netbook computer. And when students at the Texas school have maintenance or repair concerns with those devices, district technical experts troubleshoot for problems and try to diagnose if there is a warranty issue.

In most districts, the next step would usually involve shipping the netbook to the manufacturer for repair, which costs the company money and prevents the school district from using the computing device for an extended period of time.

But that is not the case in the 3,200-student Alvarado Independent School District near Dallas. Its educational technology department takes part in what is known as a “self-maintainer” program, in which district technical-staff members are certified to do warranty repairs on site by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co., earning compensation for the district of $30...