Instead of following school board policy and allowing retailers to compete for its business, Severna Park Middle decided to buy the various items from a company in Minnesota without shopping around.

Though retailer Gopher Sports gave the school a 17.5 percent discount when it's financial secretary ordered the equipment in July, administrators said they could have saved even more.

"While the pricing received by SPMS is competitive, it is not the best pricing available," officials wrote in documents posted on the school system's Web site.

Severna Park Middle Principal Sharon Morell said school financial secretary Debbie Schaefer was "performing double duties" when she placed the order, and that the mistake was "very much out of character."

Skip Lee, the school system's head of physical education, recommended Gopher Sports, and said the company had the best prices, according to a letter Morell wrote to the purchasing office.

School board policy requires staffers to explain themselves in writing when they break certain procurement rules, which state that staffers should make businesses compete for orders worth more than $25,000.

"This was simply an honest mistake by an employee due to miscommunication that is now being rectified by presenting the item to the Board for approval," school system spokesman Bob Mosier wrote in an e-mail.