It’s not just you. Crashes, error messages persist on Miami-Dade’s second day of school

Miami-Dade County Public Schools didn’t have better luck on the second day of school Tuesday.

The school district released a vague statement late Monday night announcing that the connectivity problems that sent the nation’s fourth-largest school district into a tailspin were “identified and resolved.” But “in an abundance of caution,” the statement read, a backdoor access was created for teachers and students.

That new link worked for some, but others had issues logging on, even through that backdoor solution. They were greeted with a new error message on K12, the company that runs district’s new online platform, My School Online: “Too many people are online right now.”

By 11 a.m., teachers and students were greeted with a new error message on K12: “Due to emergency maintenance, some or all courses may be unavailable. Teams ware working to resolve as quickly as possible.”

One teacher at Miami Central Senior High said she wasted the entire first period of school trying to log on, even while using her Internet connection from home. Any breakthroughs to the site quickly came and went. She then spent her time calling students’ parents to get them on Zoom.

Another teacher at Coral Reef Senior High said she logged into the K12 website directly at 7:45 a.m., but wasn’t joined by a student until 8:40 a.m. Now, 24 out of her 26 students are learning in K12. They accessed the platform via the school district’s portal, a program called Clever and the Azure backdoor.

Some were able to pivot to hosting classes via Zoom, the video chat platform.

“Not even trying K12 for last block,” texted the Reef teacher, who dropped a Zoom link into the Newrow video chat on the K12 platform for students to click on. “Waiting to know K12 is perfect before I go back. Kids are DONE.”

A school district spokeswoman said the district’s Internet service was “intermittently interrupted” Tuesday morning but is operational now.

“We are working with our service provider, Comcast, to determine the root cause,” said spokeswoman Jackie Calzadilla. “As of 9 a.m, more than 160,000 students and over 10,000 teachers were logged onto the K12 platform.”

The school district has a traditional public school enrollment of 275,000 students and nearly 20,000 teachers.

Hours later, the school district has yet to publicly acknowledge any issues with My School Online, the K12 platform. District officials purchased the platform for $15 million without any bids and without School Board approval, citing policy that allows district officials to buy curriculum without bids or approval. District officials say. The contract has not been made public — even School Board members haven’t seen it.

Miami-Dade County School Board vice chair Steve Gallon, who has a child in a Miami public school, posted this on his Facebook page before 9 a.m.: “System is down again. ZOOM it is! Get access from your child’s school. Unbelievable!”

School Board member Mari Tere Rojas said in a statement that she visited schools again with fewer teachers working from classrooms — since many found they had a better connection working from home — and witnessed “another frustrating start,” though it was “somewhat better” than Monday.

“Students and teachers had difficulty connecting and again, it is the teachers and school administrators who are helping each other out,” Rojas said. “This is still unacceptable and not fair to our students, teachers, administrators, parents and the community. They deserve better.”

This developing story will be updated.

This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 9:56 AM.