NC SCHOOLS TO BENEFIT FROM MICROSOFT SETTLEMENT

More than one-third of North Carolina's public schools will benefit from a recent national legal settlement of the class action lawsuit against Microsoft. North Carolina entered this settlement case in 2003.

As a result of the settlement, North Carolina public schools have received $40.9 million for qualifying schools that have a high percentage of children on free or reduced-price lunch. Local education agencies (LEA) and charter schools have received vouchers for reimbursement for purchases of computers, software, projectors and other technology equipment. The instructions for reimbursements and funding through vouchers were distributed to the Finance Officers from the Settlement Administrator (Poorman-Douglas Corporation). There is a 50 percent split on the vouchers distributed to each eligible LEA and charter school, half of the vouchers are for General Purpose (computers, software products, projectors, etc.), the remaining 50 percent for Software Vouchers. The Department of Public Instruction received funds to hire two people to assist local school districts in the process of redeeming the vouchers.

All ADM and Free and Reduced Lunch figures are based on the final Average Daily Membership for the 2004-05 school year. (Download an Excel version of the 2004-05 ADM figures)

Schools that are eligible for the settlement vouchers are as follows:

    * Elementary schools (schools with any grade between K and 5) that have 60 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in FY 2004-05;

    * Middle Schools (schools with grades 6, 7 or 8) that have 60 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in FY 2004-05; or

    * High Schools (schools with grades 9, 10, 11 or 12) that have 70 percent or more of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch OR high schools with an ABCs performance composite score of less than 60 percent in FY 2004-05.

Based on these criteria, this means that 642 elementary schools (44 percent of all elementary schools), 155 middle schools (33 percent of all middle schools) and 60 high schools (16 percent of all high schools) are eligible for the settlement awards.

The allocations are provided as a base allocation of $9,951.12 to each eligible school, remaining funding is distributed to schools with average daily membership (ADM) above 500. An additional $137.96 per ADM is allotted to the schools with more than 500 ADM in addition to the $9,951.12 base allocation.