COVID-19 moves Manatee schools online. The technology did not cooperate on day one

Amanda Blackwell took off from work on Monday, the first day of online classes in Manatee County, to prepare her children for their digital classroom.

Her children — a daughter in first grade and a son in third grade — embarked on different assignments in Schoology, the online learning platform. She rotated between two computers for an hour on Monday morning, before everything came to a halt.

Blackwell was sidetracked by an error message: “Something went wrong but we’re on it!”

As a precaution against COVID-19, the state education department closed all schools through at least April 15, directing students to online learning. The School District of Manatee County got word of an outage on Monday morning, soon after online classes began, district spokesman Mike Barber said.

“I don’t know if it was district wide,” he said. “That was the impression I got, but we’re looking into all that. We think it’s more of a national thing.”

In an update posted at 10:27 a.m., the company said it was investigating performance issues, and that service was improving “for most users” about one hour later.

The school district sent a message to families just before 1 p.m., encouraging students to try logging in throughout the day. It said Schoology was having problems with “the high volume of new users across the country.”

Much like the first day of school, Barber said the district would tackle problems as they surfaced. District leaders would also convene on Monday evening to discuss areas for improvement.

About 26,000 people — just over half of all district students — accessed the Schoology platform by 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Barber said.

“We felt that was pretty positive,” he said. “This is the first day, and we’re still handing out devices to students and families who need them.”

The unknowns of online learning

Aside from the occasional error, Blackwell was able to reopen Schoology and read a message from her son’s teacher on Monday afternoon.

“Welcome to online schooling,” it read. “I know this is a weird time for all of us, but I am here to help every step of the way.”

The teacher estimated that students would spend about three hours in Schoology each day, at least in the beginning, and she offered a video conference to families who needed help.

“Many students will be sharing computer access with siblings, limiting the amount of time they can spend on their own assignments,” the teacher wrote.

“Students at school are rarely required to sit and attend one activity for longer than 15 to 20 minutes in school,” she continued. “I do not expect an elementary-aged student to sit and complete hours of computer-based work.”

In a perfect world, online learning might replace and even enhance the normal school day, but reality was far more complicated, Blackwell said.

Her children were split between a home computer and a school-provided laptop, and Blackwell was split between learning the system and helping her children. Blackwell said her daughter worked on a first-grade math assignment while her son focused on a third-grade science lesson.

“I’m not a teacher, and you physically just don’t have the time, unless you’re not working, to do this for different children,” she said.

Blackwell stayed home on Monday, away from her job at a Sarasota nursing facility, to help acclimate her children to the digital classroom.

The children could attend daycare and Blackwell could return to work, but their online learning would cease on the weekdays.

“It’s a daycare and they have several different kids from different schools and grades as well,” she said. “How are they going to sit with each child and help them navigate through it like I’m doing?”

Blackwell said she was most afraid of her children losing progress. Her son struggles with reading comprehension, and while he breezed through a video lesson, he needed help with the written portions of Monday’s assignment.

“I have to focus on my children, especially my son, to try and get him through this and not be more behind than he already is,” she said.

This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 1:14 PM with the headline "COVID-19 moves Manatee schools online. The technology did not cooperate on day one."