The technology glitches that came with starting a new school year all-online weren’t unexpected. The Cobb County School District rolled out a massive new platform on Monday’s first day that was difficult for some students, parents and teachers to access.
Many parents reported troubles logging in, or being unable to get audio and live chats and Zoom links, or were having issues with specific browsers and devices.
Others said they had few problems and commended the district, which reported 107,000 first-day logins (enrollment is 112,000) on the Cobb Teaching and Learning System.
Even those with problems praised their children’s teachers and principals, many of whom were pressed into computer troubleshooting duties.
Among them is a mother of two children at East Cobb schools, who reported that her kids’ classroom connections crashed on more than one occasion during the week.
The district acknowledged what it said on Thursday afternoon was “an intermittent, system-wide interruption to the CTLS platform” that lasted for roughly two-and-a-half hours.
That crash, the mother told East Cobb News, was an emotional breaking point for her.
“The teachers are trying so hard, but the technology is in and out,” said the mother, who did not want to be identified, nor where her children attend school.
She wanted to have her children attend schools in person before Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale in July switched to an all-online start, citing COVID-19 concerns.
Now, she’s concerned that the virtual start to the school year might last longer than just a few weeks, and that poses more than technology problems for her kids.
“Mentally, these kids need to connect with their friends, they need to connect with their teachers and with other people” in person, and not just online, she said.
She said her middle school student is not faring well outside of a school environment, and she’s spoken with several other parents, some of whom were breaking down because of what their children are having to navigate.
“They’re struggling to be online all day,” said the mother, who also was choking with emotion.
Another mother of East Cobb students, Amy Henry, has been outspoken and public against the all-virtual start, starting a parents group called “Let Parents Choose,” which held rallies in recent weekends, demanding what she calls a “common-sense plan” to return to classroom instruction.
She and her husband moved last year from DeKalb County, where their children were in private school, and chose East Cobb and the Walton High School district because of the public schools.
Henry and her husband both work and she said they cannot do so at home. When the all-virtual decision was made, they put their kindergartener and fourth-grader in private school. Their two older children are Walton students attending online classes at home and participating in football and volleyball.
She said her high schoolers experienced some of the same technology problems but is more concerned about what it’s going to take to get schools open for students.
Ragsdale told the Cobb Board of Education Thursday that one of the key metrics he’s looking at is what public health officials call “high community spread.” Anything more than an average of 100 cases per 100,000 people over 14 days is considered high, and that figure in Cobb County now is in the 300s.
That’s why he’s reluctant to give a date for a phased reopening, although other school districts, such as Gwinnett County, which welcomes K-5 students back to classrooms next week, have been doing that.
Noting the low COVID-19 case rate for children under 20, Henry said other factors need to be considered.
“This virus is not a death sentence, not for everyone,” she said. “What in life is 100 percent safe? The damage we’re doing to kids [by not being in school] is immense. We’re creating a generation that’s fearful of the world.”
Henry and the unidentified mother said they support measures such as mask-wearing at schools, “but at some point we have to ask what kind of damage we’re doing to kids in the long run.”
Henry said she understands the difficult situation Ragsdale and other superintendents are in, and she doesn’t want schools to open and then have to shut down because of a virus outbreak, as has happened in some Cherokee and Paulding schools.
But Henry said the virus isn’t going away and “we cannot settle for virtual.”
In the meantime, she and other Cobb school parents will be getting some additional help. On Thursday, the Cobb school district set up a technical support system for parents and teachers:
Parents can e-mail Parent.Support@cobbk12.org or call 770-426-3330 for assistance, while students can e-mail Student.Support@cobbk12.org.
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The frustration with the schools district inability to consistently and effectively conduct online class is understandable, we all care about our children’s education
But the reality is not many of us prepared for the long term residual effects of the pandemic or had given thought to how we might handle our children’s long term remote learning along side our daily jobs.
It was just assumed “our kids will go back and I can get back to my normal day” We tried this, it failed, and we sadly put hundreds of students, teachers and their families at risk.
Parents fighting about wanting to send their children to school *during a pandemic* so they can focus on their jobs which are also remote is just mind numbingly irresponsible.
You really want to risk your families health and others health ( if you’re asymptomatic) just so you can have a a sense of normalcy?
Give the school time to improve the situation, as a technology professional I can say supporting thousands of students and teachers to conduct classes online is no easy task, particularly when they are also dependent on third party solutions to make it work.
most parents in east cobb want virtual learning. and its the vast majority probably in the high 90 percentile.
This experiment in virtual “learning” and fear continues to fail on all levels. The kids are being negatively impacted in countless ways. All kids need to socialize for their mental health. All new kids to the district are in EXTREME ISOLATION. Special Ed students get NOTHING out of virtual “learning”. Students of the arts are getting nothing. Teachers cannot do their jobs effectively this way. Even attendance is a joke. The teacjers are being told to fudge the numbers. Many parents need to be able to get back on a normal schedule in order to provide FOOD for these children. Today, Zoom is down worldwide and CTLS has crashed again.
Quit pretending this is working! Stop the madness! Open the schools back up now!
Sounds like Karen here is suffering from EXTREME ISOLATION effects
If parents have to be there, anyway, then they might as well do it on their own time schedule. Pull the kids out of school and homeschool them.
Do those “Cobb” numbers include those in the Marietta City School District? If so, then they’re artificially inflating CCSD numbers as those are two totally different school systems that do not intermingle.