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HISD having technical issues on the first day of virtual classes
Houston ISD had several technical issues Tuesday morning on the first day of classes.
HOUSTON - Texas’ largest school district got off to a rocky first day of virtual learning today when a technical issue prevented students from accessing their coursework. Houston ISD says it has smoothed out the technical issues that threw a wrench in the first day of learning for its 209-thousand students in the district.
Students at Houston ISD got automated phone calls Tuesday morning, letting them know their completely online learning HUB had technical issues. “This morning we noticed some problems with one of the hosts of our internet services, and so we’ve experienced some outages,” said Dr. Grenita Lathan, interim superintendent for Houston Independent School District.
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Lathan says the company that hosts the school district’s website crashed. The company SchoolWires hosts more than a thousand school district sites nationwide.“We can’t prepare for a crash,” said Lathan.
“We can only address it when we find out, and so the service provider is actually experiencing issues in other districts.”The issue was resolved in a matter of hours, allowing the district to focus on another major issue: making sure all students have the technology needed for virtual learning.
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A long line of students and parents formed outside of Westbury High School Tuesday afternoon where HISD distributed laptops and Internet hot spots to families who needed them. Lathan encouraged parents to notify the school district of their technology needs, as HISD waits for another shipment of iPads for elementary school students.
“I will tell you a district of 209 thousand students and now down to only 12 thousand devices that are needed tells you that we’ve done a great deal of work to ensure that we’ve communicated with our parents and we’ve deployed the devices out,” said Lathan.
Lathan says HISD has opened 36 digital learning centers across the district where students who are waiting to receive technology for virtual learning can go and study. The option of face to face learning is tentatively scheduled to resume October 19.