GWINNETT COUNTY — Frustration is mounting in homes across the county as children and their parents are experiencing system failures on the first day back to school for the Gwinnett County Public School district. Gwinnett is the state’s largest school system with approximately 180,324 students in 141 schools.
With the sheer volume of students plus over 11,000 teachers all attempting to access the school system’s portal, widespread problems plague Gwinnett. Parents have taken to social media expressing their frustration with the system and their doubts about the success of virtual learning.
After trying unsuccessfully for over an hour and a half, Debi Atluru has finally been able to get her children that attend Archer High School and McConnell Middle School logged into the school system’s portal. While Ms. Atluru says that she has not received any communication from Archer, McConnell has been in contact with parents.
“We did receive several emails and text and phone calls telling us to just keep trying to get in,” said Ms. Atluru. She added that McConnell “just sent a link for students to use a back door into zoom classrooms.”
The Gwinnett County Public School system released a statement regarding the technical issues, “While Gwinnett County Public Schools has more than 90,000 users online this morning, we know some users have reported difficulties logging into the portal and some applications. Technology staff are working to resolve these issues. If a student experiences issues, they should wait a few minutes and attempt to log in again.”
On Monday, Gwinnett tested their system to see if it could handle approximately 200,000 people all accessing the portal around the same time. With widespread reports of system issues from parents, it is safe to say that the school system’s test didn’t go well.
A representative with the school district said that members of their technology team have worked hard to fix the issues and they said that the system would be ready for the first day of school on Wednesday.
All of the technical issues that parents have experienced both on Monday and on Wednesday, the desire for in-person learning is rising. “I know there will be problems since there are so many students,” Ms. Atluru told the North Gwinnett Voice. Her doubts still persist. “Mine will be going to in-person learning as soon as it is available,” she added.
