IT company ‘ignored’ Questa schools

Remote learning, activity bus top school board meeting

The Questa Independent School Board has had its share of controversies over the past decade, but when it convened earlier this month the members who make up the board’s latest incarnation showed no signs of the dysfunction that twice led to its suspension by two state Public Education Department secretaries between 2012 and 2019.

Remote learning

The topic of greatest discussion concerned virtual learning platforms like Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom and Canvas, which Questa, like other rural school districts, has struggled to fully implement and maintain.

In a word, according to Superintendent John Maldonado, obtaining technical support for Microsoft Teams has been “difficult.”

“When you call them they want to call back or they want you to sit on hold for a couple of hours and so we’re trying to see if there’s a way to speed that process up. And when I say ‘we’ it’s mainly our IT people, [and] they’re also with other districts as well so it’s kind of a ‘when we get to it’ type of deal.”

Maldonado said the process of initiating a lock out feature, updating passwords and implementing other controls to ensure that accounts and student chat rooms within Microsoft Teams are secure is taking too long, but added that the district has made progress “one at a time.”

“They have to go through each account and actually go in and for each one of the students there’s a box that you check off,” Maldonado said, adding “that’s been a pretty time-consuming little process,” with 17 account checks completed as of Feb. 8.

That task, as well as other IT tasks, have fallen to Maldonado and district-wide Principal Kimber MacDonald because Plan B, the IT support company with which the district contracts, has not been responsive.

“Did they refuse to do the controls on teams?” board member

Juan Cisneros asked the superintendent.

“They just kind of ignored,” Maldonado replied, explaining that the school district’s attorney reviewed the contract with Plan B and reported that “there was no termination clause built into their contracts. Her recommendation was to do our best to finish out our term and move on at that point.”

The contract with Plan B expires June 30. The company did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Secretary Micheal Cordova asked for a timeline for a transition to using Google Classroom for remote learning, acknowledging that Maldonado and MacDonald don’t have a lot of spare time to do IT work. Cordova thanked them for stepping up to do the IT work.

“If we had an IT person that was able to do that and work on it, it would probably take us about a month,” Maldonado said. “Right now, just because we’re kind of doing it in our spare time, it probably will take us about a good three, four months to get everything completed with the Google Classroom transition.”

Ultimately, board members and administrators agreed that the district would focus on solving existing issues within Microsoft Teams and address a possible transition to the Google Classroom platform after the end of the current school year.

“If we can get these controls up and running and they’re working effectively, then really they’re doing the job we need and there’s the possibility of not even looking to make the switch,” Maldonado said, adding that the entire district would have to switch from using Microsoft Office 365 accounts to using Google G Suite (now known as Google Workspace) accounts.

MacDonald advised the board that remote learning platforms will continue to be a part of Questa students’ educations in the future, regardless of whether the COVID-19 pandemic persists. She described it as a “back up plan” and as providing a useful dashboard where students can find materials and homework.

“I think at the seventh through 12th grade level, I do see a need for a virtual platform,” MacDonald said. “So much of their information, including textbooks and stuff, does come from online. And it’s a very nice way of having kind of folders in the classroom [like] where kids used to pick up their missing work.

Activity bus

Learning that Questa district school buses are slated to undergo inspection on March 21, board President Jason Rael asked whether the districtowned, wheelchair-accessible activity bus would be included in the inspection, and if parentowned vehicles used to transport handicapped students would be inspected.

MacDonald confirmed that the vehicle would be inspected, despite the fact that the bus hasn’t seen much use since the pandemic began.

“At the moment we don’t have any students in that situation [who] require transportation, because students in that situation are homebound due to COVID,” MacDonald said. “In the past, when we have not had a district driver for that bus, we’ve reimbursed those parents for transporting their students in their vehicles that handle wheelchairs and that kind of thing. Just right now, none of those students are attending school. They receive all their services at home.”

Rael said it would be prudent to drive the bus occasionally in order to prevent mechanical problems that can occur in vehicles that sit idle for long periods of time.

“Let them know that if it doesn’t move, the seals dry out, the tires get rotted and we’re going to be looking down the road at having to replace a perfectly good school bus someday,” Rael said.

Retaining a driver for the bus is an issue, but Superintendent John Maldonado noted that his administration has discussed the possibility of adding the use of the bus, or even a driver to drive the bus, to the district’s contract with the company who provides daily transportation for students.

“We would need another contract set up to be able to use that bus,” Maldonado said. “Right now the way the contract reads, even for activities, we have to use their buses that are designated for activities.

“Some of our teams are big enough that they could fit on that bus,” Maldonado added. “So that bus could get some use out of it.”

‘I think at the seventh through 12th grade level, I do see a need for a virtual platform. So much of their information, including textbooks and stuff, does come from online. And it’s a very nice way of having kind of folders in the classroom [like] where kids used to pick up their missing work.’

KIMBER MACDONALD

Questa district-wide Principal