It's been a month since a February snow storm prompted a return to remote learning for the nation's largest school district, and still, New York City education officials say their systems are not ready for a do-over.
Chancellor David Banks said last week that improvements had been made since the Feb. 13 snow day, but the remote system still is not where it needs to be.
"If we had to do this tomorrow, we don't think we're ready for that," Banks said.
Tens of thousands of families had tech problems when they tried to log on last month when the Adams administration pivoted to online schooling instead of calling a snow day.
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There's still uncertaintly over the capacity of the IBM server that handles the New York City public school system.
“We’ve been working with them on a daily basis since then to insure their log in tool can take the capacity for full transition to remote," Deputy Chancellor Emma Vadehra said.
The deputy schools chancellor says staggered starting times could be an option in the future. School officials say they won't be ready to handle simultaneous log-ins for every student and teacher until they've stress-tested the system.
Mother Nature may have bought everyone some extra time, since winter has seemingly vanished with no signs of coming back. But Chancellor Banks said no one should have any illusions — remote learning days will be back.
“I believe that beyond the crisis and emergencies — that our school system not only in New York but across the nation, particularly with the advent of AI, we're gonna be moving more and more deeply into remote and virtual learning opportunities,” Banks added.
