Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:seems like the principals need to tell their teachers to go ahead with non synchronous learning in whatever way they choose. Stop relying on the higher ups.

+1000000000

That’s what my elementary grade level did from the beginning and we didn’t miss a beat today. Students watched recorded lessons, they completed the work, teachers commented and returned it, and answered questions from students. When I mentioned recorded lessons last week many in other threads were amazed and upset that the kids might not have “live” lessons. Well, it’s working well for us and we’ve had positive feedback from families.

Us too. So it’s been fine for my kids. They have a live morning meeting where the teacher went over the plan of the day. There is a live afternoon session of “ask the teacher” where they could get help with any other problems they ran into. Other then that it is videos and assignments. Also the teacher, spec Ed teacher and grade level ia are monitoring the classroom stream and helping as questions pop up there.

Yes. Yesterday was one of our best days yet. The students are starting to “get it” (they’re 8 and 9 years old) and it’s starting to fall into a routine.

The bolded would be great for my first grader. Our school was prepared because they had a choice board ready for the whole weeks so she's completed all of those activities and would love more!! She doesn't need the live instruction, she'd be happy to hear her teacher's voice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone else embarrassed when they tell their friends and relatives who live in DC and MD that distance learning has not even started for their kids at FCPS? I feel that way - like somehow I failed as a parent.

Yes, it's embarrassing but so are the Taj Mahal additions at some schools while others end up trailer parks.

Your post is embarrassing. My kids have had trailers come and go at their schools. It's not shameful, it's pretty normal all around the country, except for schools that are partially or fully closed because of declining numbers. Now they're in a shiny newly renovated school. That's not shameful either.

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone else embarrassed when they tell their friends and relatives who live in DC and MD that distance learning has not even started for their kids at FCPS? I feel that way - like somehow I failed as a parent.

Yes, it's embarrassing but so are the Taj Mahal additions at some schools while others end up trailer parks.

Is anyone else embarrassed when they tell their friends and relatives who live in DC and MD that distance learning has not even started for their kids at FCPS? I feel that way - like somehow I failed as a parent.

Anonymous wrote:i think its a little creepy how some poster is obsessed with free tampons. Should we make kids bring their own toilet paper to school, too? Its the same thing.

What’s next - making teachers wipe kids butts if their parents didn’t teach them right?

Hey IT pp, the BB guy said yesterday that other users have automatic updating because they use the cloud, but fcps does not use that process/version. Fcps Luftglas said they didn't do the updates in the summer because time ran out and they didn't do them during the past weeks because the updates tend to cause some links to bresk and need fixing which they didn't hsve time to deal with.

I think fcps isn't on the most current version of BB that does automatic cloud updates because fcps was planning to phase out of BB.

Like most big fails, it was a combination of things going wrong and assumptions made that cause the big failure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This part is unclear- we hear one person say that it's a BB-hosted (aka cloud) installation, then we hear someone else say that it's hosted internally (by FCPS), so until we have a clear picture of that, it's hard to say who is more at fault. If it's hosted by BB, typically they would perform the maintenance and roll out updates on their own schedule; additional features purchased by FCPS would be installed by BB (but perhaps activated/turned on by FCPS). Any performance issues would be on BB in this scenario. If it's hosted by FCPS, then it would be up to them to install updates and upgrades and FCPS would be responsible for performance issues. It's also possible that it's a hybrid that first touches FCPS before going to BB, in which case there are multiple potential points of failure.

IT person here. The load issues are squarely in FCPS's lap. While the Blackboard part is run by Blackboard in the cloud, the _login_ part is run by FCPS and not hosted on Blackboard's side (for good reason -- it's also used for people to log in to non-BB services like email).

As for the upgrade side of it, BB is still upgrading the _underlying_ part, i.e. the Unix or Windows operating system, since that's vital to ensure it's patched for any security vulnerabilities and BB is in charge of maintaining their own underlying cloud installation. It's up to the _client_ (FCPS) to upgrade the BB _product_ installation in the cloud. The reason it's not automatic in cases like this is that schools don't want things changing suddenly and then their documentation and tutorials are inaccurate and out of date. Imagine if the new update moves some buttons from the left side of the screen to the top of the screen, for example.

I think there are better products than BB out there feature-wise, but my professional opinion is that this particular debacle is not BB's fault.

While that may normally be true I thought someone said FCPS are paying for extra support.

Even if they are, BB support people can't do an upgrade unless the client signs off on it. The client would be pretty angry otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:i think its a little creepy how some poster is obsessed with free tampons. Should we make kids bring their own toilet paper to school, too? Its the same thing.

+1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This part is unclear- we hear one person say that it's a BB-hosted (aka cloud) installation, then we hear someone else say that it's hosted internally (by FCPS), so until we have a clear picture of that, it's hard to say who is more at fault. If it's hosted by BB, typically they would perform the maintenance and roll out updates on their own schedule; additional features purchased by FCPS would be installed by BB (but perhaps activated/turned on by FCPS). Any performance issues would be on BB in this scenario. If it's hosted by FCPS, then it would be up to them to install updates and upgrades and FCPS would be responsible for performance issues. It's also possible that it's a hybrid that first touches FCPS before going to BB, in which case there are multiple potential points of failure.

IT person here. The load issues are squarely in FCPS's lap. While the Blackboard part is run by Blackboard in the cloud, the _login_ part is run by FCPS and not hosted on Blackboard's side (for good reason -- it's also used for people to log in to non-BB services like email).

As for the upgrade side of it, BB is still upgrading the _underlying_ part, i.e. the Unix or Windows operating system, since that's vital to ensure it's patched for any security vulnerabilities and BB is in charge of maintaining their own underlying cloud installation. It's up to the _client_ (FCPS) to upgrade the BB _product_ installation in the cloud. The reason it's not automatic in cases like this is that schools don't want things changing suddenly and then their documentation and tutorials are inaccurate and out of date. Imagine if the new update moves some buttons from the left side of the screen to the top of the screen, for example.

I think there are better products than BB out there feature-wise, but my professional opinion is that this particular debacle is not BB's fault.

While that may normally be true I thought someone said FCPS are paying for extra support.

Anonymous wrote:i think its a little creepy how some poster is obsessed with free tampons. Should we make kids bring their own toilet paper to school, too? Its the same thing.

Really?

Perhaps the schools should stock up on all personal hygiene products, so they can give them away for free. The transformation of FCPS into a social welfare agency will be complete!

There is no training for teachers today like leadership mentioned to families, it is a let’s hope it works approach.

i think its a little creepy how some poster is obsessed with free tampons. Should we make kids bring their own toilet paper to school, too? Its the same thing.

Anonymous wrote:

This part is unclear- we hear one person say that it's a BB-hosted (aka cloud) installation, then we hear someone else say that it's hosted internally (by FCPS), so until we have a clear picture of that, it's hard to say who is more at fault. If it's hosted by BB, typically they would perform the maintenance and roll out updates on their own schedule; additional features purchased by FCPS would be installed by BB (but perhaps activated/turned on by FCPS). Any performance issues would be on BB in this scenario. If it's hosted by FCPS, then it would be up to them to install updates and upgrades and FCPS would be responsible for performance issues. It's also possible that it's a hybrid that first touches FCPS before going to BB, in which case there are multiple potential points of failure.

IT person here. The load issues are squarely in FCPS's lap. While the Blackboard part is run by Blackboard in the cloud, the _login_ part is run by FCPS and not hosted on Blackboard's side (for good reason -- it's also used for people to log in to non-BB services like email).

As for the upgrade side of it, BB is still upgrading the _underlying_ part, i.e. the Unix or Windows operating system, since that's vital to ensure it's patched for any security vulnerabilities and BB is in charge of maintaining their own underlying cloud installation. It's up to the _client_ (FCPS) to upgrade the BB _product_ installation in the cloud. The reason it's not automatic in cases like this is that schools don't want things changing suddenly and then their documentation and tutorials are inaccurate and out of date. Imagine if the new update moves some buttons from the left side of the screen to the top of the screen, for example.

I think there are better products than BB out there feature-wise, but my professional opinion is that this particular debacle is not BB's fault.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it's fcps IT/luftglas who dropped the ball. They didn't specify the capacity or needs to Blackboard (lufthlass admitted). They didn't tell teachers not to use guest id's. They didn't do updates. They wanted BB to take the blame, but when questioned on the details, it was mainly Luftglas and IT dept that didn't manage the plan properly.

Any software company knows that clients aren't tech savvy. And usually are cheap and put off doing updates. So what else is new? They're supposed to figure this stuff out. Blackboard said they modeled the load, just that apparently they did it badly.

Blackboard's product may or may not be good but their service is bad.

The FCPS IT department isn't tech savvy? That's their job, for pete's sake!

What's next, blaming the manufacturer of the ovens in the cafeteria when kids get sick from undercooked food, because the cooks are not "cooking savvy"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is laughable that some folks use salary as a reason to fire an FCPS employee. I would argue that a CEO responsible for over 200,000 individuals is underpaid at 290K. That said, this is an monumental failure and some heads should roll. Luftglass (assistant superintendent of the Department of Information Technology) not recommending blackboard be updated over the last 3 year and expecting it to work? She blames Blackboard for this? Then she blames the training teachers received (and by extention the trainers) for the failures? Sad when a higher up's failure leads them to blame the line worker.

Agree. Actually, a lot of it does sound like Blackboard's fault, since they host all of FCPS. Blame them, not the FCPS IT or teachers.

This part is unclear- we hear one person say that it's a BB-hosted (aka cloud) installation, then we hear someone else say that it's hosted internally (by FCPS), so until we have a clear picture of that, it's hard to say who is more at fault. If it's hosted by BB, typically they would perform the maintenance and roll out updates on their own schedule; additional features purchased by FCPS would be installed by BB (but perhaps activated/turned on by FCPS). Any performance issues would be on BB in this scenario. If it's hosted by FCPS, then it would be up to them to install updates and upgrades and FCPS would be responsible for performance issues. It's also possible that it's a hybrid that first touches FCPS before going to BB, in which case there are multiple potential points of failure.

Regardless, though, of who specifially dropped the ball(s), the response by Braband, Luftglass & Co has been inappropriate and embarrassing. I don't know how the SBTSs and Teachers can report to work today and feel like they're supported in any way by the district.

How do you think teachers in overcrowded schools feel when the School Board ignores their situation so Keys Gamarra can monopolize School Board time with pilot programs to pass out free tampons?

FCPS needs an overhaul. Get rid of Brabrand, Luftglass, and Platenberg. Recall Corbett Sanders and Keys Gamarra. Find some people who care about quality education and quality facilities, not passing the buck or spending 24/7 talking about "equity."