Wednesday was back-to-school for students in Lewisville ISD. And with an online-only first day, it did not go as smoothly as some had hoped.
Parents took to social media with technological headaches from trouble logging in to getting booted off the system to long wait times on the phone with IT.
Some expressed anger, while others said it was to be expected.
Jennifer Hamilton, mom to a fourth and fifth-grader, said she expected frustrations.
“We’re starting it, they’re in class with their teacher and then all of a sudden, Canvas doesn’t work. It kicks them out. They’re not showing up in their meetings. Their teachers can’t get their emails,” said parent Jennifer Hamilton.
By the time the district emailed parents to explain some of the issues, Hamilton said all she could do was laugh.
A parent shared that email with NBC DFW:
LISD families,
The district is aware of a variety of technical issues accessing online resources, including Canvas and WebEx.
More details:
- Currently, district network bandwidth is maxed out.
- Learning Hub is not allowing users to log in.
- Secondary students accessing Edgenuity via Canvas are getting errors.
- WebEx sessions are experiencing lagging communication.
- Skyward and other cloud resources will respond slowly.
The LISD Technology team is working with vendor support resources to help resolve the issues as quickly as possible. To help preserve bandwidth, we ask that families turn off your video during WebEx sessions until further notice.
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“You can’t expect them to be perfect on the first day of school when they have 60,000 on the same network,” said Hamilton.
In a statement to NBC5, a district spokesperson said:
“The first few days of any school year are focused on students and staff getting to know each other and beginning to build relationships, and that is more important now than ever! We know some families experienced issues with technology, and we are working as quickly as possible to identify and fix those problems. We also know our students and staff connected today, something we’ve been looking forward to since May. We appreciate the patience and grace shown by families across LISD as we work through these challenges.”
Hamilton said she feels confident the bugs will be worked out over the next several days. In the meantime, she’s hoping her daughters can learn something from the frustrations.
“I have made it a point to just teach and show my girls that you have to be adaptable to change,” said Hamilton.
