Disappointed Kids All Over HPISD

It’s kinda like Santa didn’t show up. Elementary school students across HPISD were eagerly anticipating 1:00 today which was scheduled to be the magic moment they could log on and find out who their teachers would be for the 2010-2011 school year. But a ginormous, district-wide website crash has children with super sad faces hitting refresh and wishing for the good old fashioned list on the school’s front door system.

See kids, computers aren’t as great as you thought.

By Merritt Patterson Aug. 18, 2010 | 3:26 pm | 23 Comments | Comments RSS
23 comments to "Disappointed Kids All Over HPISD"
  1. Joe Schmo @ August 18, 2010 at 3:31 pm
    I called the school and they said the internet was down in the entire neighborhood and that AT&T was working on it. I guess not only did they not anticipate the traffic but they also don’t understand basic Information Technology.

  2. Merritt Patterson @ August 18, 2010 at 3:40 pm
    Well, Schmo, my insider says it’s a crash. Your source could be right but I’m getting e-mails from all over saying they can get other sites but nothing in HPISD.

  3. Rebecca @ August 18, 2010 at 3:53 pm
    Merritt, any word on when they will just put the list on the front door?

  4. James Tucker @ August 18, 2010 at 4:03 pm
    I’m going to have to vote “no-confidence” on this new system. I’m not sure that registration was any more difficult, but information retrieval has been a little dicey.

  5. Charles @ August 18, 2010 at 4:10 pm
    Hm, my little postcard says the class lists for Hyer will be posted tomorrow, Thursday, at 5:00 p.m. on both the door and online.

  6. Merritt Patterson @ August 18, 2010 at 4:18 pm
    Charles, I think that postcard just went to you. Maybe all of Hyer but probably just you.

  7. Merritt Patterson @ August 18, 2010 at 4:28 pm
    I just received the following e-mail that’s being forwarded around:

    “I am sure you have tried to access your child’s class lists and have been
    unable to connect to UP’s web site. All internet service to all schools
    that use Dallas County Schools’ Internet Service is out. It was not a
    planned outage and is not controlled by HPISD. Please be patient as they
    are working to get the problem fixed. I will keep trying and will let you
    know when it is back up.”

    But I tried DISD and their sites are working.

    Then I got this one:
    “Just left the school. As of now, server is still down and lists will not be
    posted. Also, Paula is unable to send or receive emails, so please pass
    along this info to your friends and neighbors. Hopefully, we will be up and
    running very soon! Thanks again for your patience!”

    So here’s my question: Why not post it on the door? I’m just sayin’. Is it that much trouble?

  8. Merritt Patterson @ August 18, 2010 at 4:31 pm
    And now I have this e-mail:

    “Hi, Merritt. I called the district to see why I couldn’t get on its site for something (not UP’s) and the very nice and clearly tired woman who answered the phone said that “some TXDOT worker set fire to a fiber optic cable” thus killing the district’s internet access. She said they have no idea when they will get service back.”

  9. Bluebird @ August 18, 2010 at 4:34 pm
    I was told the same ~ that a fire damaged the cable that HP/UP school system server uses thus the outage

  10. OK.... @ August 18, 2010 at 5:02 pm
    …so how does not having internet connection to the server(s) prevent a list from being printed and posted?

  11. kmom @ August 18, 2010 at 5:08 pm
    Blaming it on DISD makes me LOL

  12. Rebecca @ August 18, 2010 at 7:04 pm
    Got a call from my kiddo’s new teacher about an hour ago. Class lists for UP are now posted at the front of the school.

  13. A. B. @ August 18, 2010 at 7:38 pm
    This is not a crisis. Whether you find out today or Monday morning, online or at the door, your kid will have the same teacher.

  14. kit ramsey @ August 18, 2010 at 8:45 pm
    they will really be disappointed when classes start and summer is officially over.

  15. AT & T @ August 18, 2010 at 8:59 pm
    My High Speed Ineterwebs crashed around lunch time today. AT & T tech support was not helpful and the off shore tech center did not know about any crash in DFW. It was only because I asked my neighbor did I know.

  16. Jack Shay @ August 18, 2010 at 9:35 pm
    got a postcard as well…….thursday was suppose to be the day…..if it was suppose to happen today….that’s new news.

  17. T-Bone @ August 18, 2010 at 9:55 pm
    I guess that what $105,000,000 annually in school taxes get us……….a crappy IT system. I bet those school districts that got our Robin Hood dollars had their lists hand delivered to the parent’s door. Is it TOO much to ask to post online out the class lists two weeks in advance?

  18. Basic IT @ August 18, 2010 at 10:51 pm
    If the servers were down it would obviously not prevent them from printing and posting the lists if they had access to it on a PC that wasn’t pulling the data from a server.

    If you try to get to http://www.hpisd.org you will notice it won’t work. However, if you go to the high school site http://www.hs.hpisd.org you will notice it’s fully functional.

    It’s likely the entire HPISD.org domain/DNS is hosted by the same server and it would not make sense that a cable or a “fire” to a cable would take out one part of the website and not another. I’ve also never heard of someone setting fire to a cable.

    My educated guess is that the site(s) were overwhelmed. After all we are a neighborhood of busybody parents who at 1:00 pm today all tried to login to see class rosters and new teacher assignments likely causing the crash.

    Call it what you want but I’m not buying that someone set a fire to an optic fiber cable.

  19. D @ August 19, 2010 at 9:08 am
    I received the same postcard as Charles and Jack Shay stating that Thursday evening the Hyer classes would be posted online and at the school for Back to School night.

    Also, I got on the MIS website both yesterday and today, so I’m with Basic IT, something’s not adding up regarding what has caused these issues.

  20. AD @ August 19, 2010 at 10:55 am
    What a non issue. So what? Kids wait an extra day. Will the be traumatized into perpetuity?

  21. Jgo @ August 19, 2010 at 2:04 pm
    I don’t have kids yet but why does anyone need a class list two weeks before school starts? It used to be two days before school that you would go up at 5 pm, find out who you had, and after that wash away your sorrows or toast your fortune with a trip to Ball’s. Probably less depressing if it’s an online event rather than the Death March to see if you got the mean teacher.

  22. Pigskinnie @ August 19, 2010 at 3:59 pm
    @Jgo, why do you have to depress us by reminding us that Ball’s is no longer there?!?

  23. Sharpay @ August 20, 2010 at 8:17 am
    @jgo – school starts on Monday, not two weeks from now.

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