GREENSBORO, N.C. — The rocky start to the school year directly impacted thousands of parents and students across the state and the Triad. Many families dealt with tech troubles in the early hours on the first day of nine weeks of remote learning.
"We got onto the NCED site, and it just kept loading. The screen wouldn't come up for nothing, and it was very slow," mom, Nikita Atwood of Greensboro said.
"For my eighth-grader, he got in just fine. My new freshman couldn't get in and her page said access denied. At first, it was, try again and keep refreshing," mom, Janie Herring also of Greensboro said.
"When I got on there, I still had some of my classes from middle school and after about like 15 minutes it went away, but I'm still missing my first class. It never showed up on there," Herring's daughter Alyssa said. She is a freshman at a Guilford County school.
The school districts were inundated with calls and queries about the technical glitch. The district sent out automated messages to let families know the state server was down.
Some other students however were able to log onto their learning portals with ease.
"For my first grader, everything went perfectly with him. His classroom was set up virtually. He got all his assignments done, knew who his teacher was and everything worked as they said it would have in the email," mom, Tottinna Culler said.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction later announced the service was back up and students who were locked out of the learning portals were able to log in and continue their work.
"Once we got in, it was just like the way it was set up in the beginning when we first started and it was super easy," Atwood said.
"They are still trying to work out the kinks and get to them because that's a lot of people trying to get onto a server at one time," Herring said.
Parents and students weren't the only ones impacted. Teachers also had their day interrupted.
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"I think the word that everybody was kind of feeling this morning was a little bit of nervousness across the board," Michelle Harris-Jefferson, a GCS teacher said.
Teachers were unable to connect with students at the scheduled times. Their back up plan for any missed session is to upload recordings that students could access later.
"I don't think anybody felt truly prepared for today, whether it's the parents, the students, or the teachers because it's very hard to prepare for something that you've never experienced," Harris-Jefferson said.
"I hope that it gets better because it's kind of crazy and very anti-climactic," added Alyssa.
GCS said the issue was with the state portal used by all North Carolina school systems and not with the Canvas portal itself.
Access was restored and the school district thanked families for their patience.