MIAMI (WSVN) - Miami-Dade County Public Schools officials announced changes to its online learning system ahead of the fourth day of school after the program they were using was hit by ongoing cyberattacks and encountered other issues.
Officials on Wednesday night suspended the K-12 platform, which has encountered issues since the beginning of the school year on Monday, for students between the sixth and 12th grades starting on Thursday.
Students in between the sixth and 12th grades will be using programs such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom through Microsoft Teams or other systems. Those students enrolled in pre-K through fifth grade will continue to use the K-12 platform because it has been successful for them.
Parents and students, meanwhile, feel drained because the online system has not been been working properly.
“If this is the only option that we have, it has to work,” Seth Rios, a parent, said.
“A little worried still because we don’t know what can still happen,” Mario Guzman, a parent, said.
District officials hope the new solution will work better for those grade levels.
“Much like you, I share a deep disappointment, frustration and, at this point, quite frankly, a degree of anger,” M-DCPS Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said.
Officials said the reasons for the problems include connection issues, problems with a third party server, glitches within the $15.3 million platform and cyberattacks.
Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Edwin Lopez wrote in a statement, “We have identified and are looking into several IP addresses. Preliminary information suggests that these IP addresses are linked to both local and international sources. Our district’s firewalls have prevented any penetration of our systems. Student and employee data has not been compromised.”
“I don’t think it was vetted sufficiently,” M-DCPS Board Member Maria Teresa Rojas said.
“We advised them against taking this platform K-12,” Florida Education Association President Fedrick Ingram said. “We believe that K-12 is one of the worst.”
“They are one of the state’s approved virtual instruction providers,” M-DCPS Assistant Superintendent Sylvia Diaz said. “We thought it was more engaging. We thought the platform was simpler for children to navigate. They had more course offerings.”
However, parents and students hope the fourth day of school will not be a repeat of the first three days.
“My expectation for the next few days? Hopefully the system starts to come back together,” Rios said.
School officials will decide by Sept. 11 whether or not to bring the K-12 system back for students between sixth and 12th grades and whether or not students between pre-K and fifth grade will continue using the program.
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