Here's an interesting letter recently forwarded to me by a client who's children attend the local private school who sent the email out. Then my response.

Dear Parents,
 
Please read carefully the message from our computer department concerning new upgrades. 
 
We have upgraded all of our computer to Microsoft Office 2007. Families with previous versions (office ’97 to 2003) have two options to be compatible with the school:
 
1.      Download the compatibility pack from Microsoft by clicking on the following address: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
2.      Use the “SAVE-AS” feature and save as a previous version (’97-2003) when working in Office( word, excel, PowerPoint…) at the middle school.
 
Also, please be aware that we DO NOT support Mac software. If students work on Office for the Mac they “should” be able to open them here at the Middle School. However, we have had a lot of problems with students working on a Mac at home and trying to open up their documents at school. Please know that we can NOT support two operating systems. We are a Windows based school.

my response:

This email you received is indeed a very disturbing one.  I am sad to see that this school would take this stance and tone.  This says to me that the IT department is not knowledgeable enough to support the most popular Operating systems.  As an active consultant in the area, I can't tell you how many of my clients (mac users) send their children to this school.  This is not the best position to take as an organization but it is, of course, their prerogative.  
Now to address the question.  It's not actually a mac to windows issue of compatibility.  The core issue is that Microsoft chose to adopt a new file saving method and extension naming system that cripples older versions of office documents, be it excel, doc, powerpoint, etc... by adding an "x" to the file name extension.  In actuality, Apple's iWork suite was compatible with Microsoft's new file format before Microsoft was.  As long as anyone creates a file on a mac with an office application then saves it as a traditional office document, there is no reason it should not open on Windows other than the Windows machine's own inability to open files singularly.  

The one common mistake that mac users can make is by using iWork to create their documents but then forgetting to export them to the Microsoft format.  It is true that Microsoft Office can not open pages, keynote, or numbers files in their native apple format.  The simple thing to do is to export the file from iWork into the Microsoft format.  Very simple and built in to iWork.  

This school's statements are made out of ignorance on how both platforms interact with each other rather than out of actual fact.  Their statement that they can not support two operating systems should be reworded to say they choose not to.  Not that they can not.  As many corporations have begun to discover in the past few years, there are a tremendous growing number of mac users in both the home and in business and if they do not learn to adapt to both platforms, they will find themselves technologically inferior to other choices of schools in the area such as Charlotte Latin who does a very good job at educating both their staff and students on how to work within today's computing environment.

 The old attitude of "macs don't work with windows" was last relevant around 1995.  We've moved on.