Open Source School Programs

The Penn Manor IT and IS Team strongly values open source software and principles. For nearly 20 years, the team successfully implemented high-quality, low-cost, open source alternatives to proprietary applications and services. Open source represents more than zero cost; open source principles promote technological freedom of choice and a community spirit of learning.

Moodle, first installed in 2004, is an excellent open LMS. Since 2010, Penn Manor school libraries have relied on Koha, a free, community-driven collection management system. Open source software programs such as Apache, Puppet, and WordPress are essential to district infrastructure. Check out our list of great open source software for education.

Penn Manor School District has maintained a large base of student laptops running Linux. In January 2014 all Penn Manor High School students received laptops running open source software exclusively. The program expanded to middle school students in August 2015 and was extended to students in grades 5 and 6 during 2018.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, featured our high school program. Red Hat featured our open source programs and student help desk in a wonderful documentary. In 2016, Penn Manor received an Award of Distinction from District Administration Magazine.