Scattered troubles reported as Broward students return for online school
Many Broward students and teachers started their new school year online Wednesday with few major problems but occasionally spotty service.
Many students were able to get online before 8:30 a.m. with no problems, but as more schools started opening, many experienced difficulties with Canvas, the district’s online portal.
“At this time Canvas is experiencing some technical issues across the district. Please be patient as we are working to solve the problem,” said an email sent at 9 a.m. by administrators at Indian River Middle School in Davie. “Continue to try and login, we appreciate your patience and understanding.”
Superintendent Robert Runcie downplayed the problems at a news conference Wednesday, saying the problems were confined to a period between around 8:30 a.m. and 8:50 a.m. and were resolved quickly.
“I will say that we had a very good opening with technology. There were some reports of glitches, but I think that’s somewhat exaggerated” he said.
Matthew Herz, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, disagreed.
“It wasn’t exaggerated when I couldn’t get on Canvas for my whole first period,” he said.
The technical issues with the network appeared to be much less severe than on March 30, when Broward schools first switched to online learning. On that day, Canvas crashed for much of the day.
School Board member Donna Korn said during a School Board meeting Wednesday that her two children had difficulty logging on. She said her daughter had a slight delay but got on in a few minutes. Her son, who is a high school senior, had more troubles, which she described as a problem with his home computer.
“His computer would just not work at all this morning, every day in the summer not a single problem, and then this morning, it crashed,” she said.
She said she picked up a laptop at his school to use and she thinks that resolved the issue and her son got on “after a little pause from Canvas.”
“We understand that there are going to be glitches as we go through this process, but there has been been a great deal of work” by district administrators to make the effort as smooth as possible. “I just want parents to know they’re not alone. There’s a learning curve that goes with this, and we’re all in this together.”
About 212,000 students and staff members were on the system simultaneously Monday. Registered enrollment for the district is down significantly from last year. About 214,032 students are enrolled in district-run schools, a 3.9% drop from the 222,689 who were enrolled last year. Charter school enrollment climbed 1,600 to 47,678.
Many teachers worked from their classrooms at school, even though students weren’t there. School resource officers and security staff also reported to their campuses. The schools were also open for students to pick up breakfasts and lunch. Bus drivers have worked from home doing virtual training, Runcie said.