Extreme vs Meraki

Looking for some feedback on switches and if anyone has gone from Meraki to Extreme (or the other way) and has comparisons.

We are a k12 school with 12 buildings, 9 for schools, the rest for operations. Currently running all Cisco 2960Xs or older. My crew is limited in time and expertise and I can’t hire more people. I’m a director who’s geared more to education than pure technology, but I know a bit and understand the bridge between the two worlds.

My issue is, my networking guy is leaning more toward a Extreme (so I’m leaning more toward Extreme). However, if he leaves, it’ll be tough for me to hire someone with the experience I need, meaning I’ll be doing more of the work - at that point. Meraki is more appealing. My vendor is providing extreme management center at no cost to us if we go that route.

I like them both, but because we don’t have either, we can’t do a side by side comparison. While we are into replacing it right now, we will need a new head end distribution unit as well.

What’s been quoted for us is: Extreme - x450-G2 Meraki - MS-250

We will stack what we can stack and most switch to switch is fiber (there are a few rogue locations within buildings that require little throughout that’s on copper).

Thanks all for the help. Appreciate having communities like this we can bounce questions off of!