Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Arlington County School Wi-Fi Crashes

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by

James A. Bacon
in

This just came in from a Bacon’s Rebellion correspondent around 10:50 a.m.

“Arlington wifi was out at all schools for the first hour of school today. At home students just sitting there. In school now totally dependent on powerpoint, google slides etc for instruction.”

There is no acknowledgement on the Arlington County Public Schools home page yet, and local news media has not yet reported anything.

This incident may be a fluke. I don’t want to read too much into it. But it could feed into the narrative that the people running Virginia’s public schools can’t get anything right. K-12 schools are shaping up as the biggest election issue of the 2021 electoral season, and this time the argument isn’t, “We need more money for schools.”

12:25 p.m. Update: Wi-Fi restored.

— JAB

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25 responses to “Arlington County School Wi-Fi Crashes”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Good Grief! Now we’re blaming the schools for internet outages?

    I’ve got news. Outages happen. All kinds. Water, sewer, electricity AND internet – and not a one of them is due to incompetent schools.

    lord.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Let’s see …

      From Arlington Public Schools:

      “The APS wireless network is unavailable at all school sites this morning. This impacts all in-person staff and students who use wireless devices to access APS network services.

      Distance Learning students will not be affected unless their teacher is unable to connect their devices. We are working to resolve the issue. Once the problem has been resolved, we will notify staff and students.

      We apologize for the inconvenience.

      The Department of Information Services”

      1. The APS wireless network is unavailable, not the Internet.

      2. Distance learning students will not be affected … Why? Because it is the APS Wireless Network that is down, not the Internet

      3. ” … unless their teacher is unable to connect their devices” In other words, unless the teacher is in any Arlington Public School because the APS wireless network is down, not the Internet.

      We’re blaming the schools for THEIR entire, system-wide wireless network going down. Yes, Larry.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Do these kinds of outages happen ONLY to Arlington Schools and no one else?

        You don’t even know what the problem is , right?

        You’re a tech guy DJ – this is so bogus and you know it.

        1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          No, they don’t happen only to Arlington School System or any other school. When I was still working, the state internet system would go down occasionally. Sometimes, my cable system (Comcast) goes down. These things happen in an electronic world. Whenever I asked the technical people for an explanation, I would get the answer, there was a glitch or a “burp”. In other works, they didn’t know. Of course, some people who, understandably are anxious about virtual learning, will blame a school system for anything that goes wrong.

          1. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            But Dick, random events cannot be explained by conspiracy. Much better that these be suspicious events.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            DANG RIGHT – if it has anything at all to do with leftist school dweebs…

          3. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Comeuppance for Tuckums…

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wFRLWGRtM3g&ebc=ANyPxKp0GyLrEddaftbXyTPdUFVqUSbnIM_5d5sS4ZaBc9GzozebhvfGzQ_07SzzXlnz9KIdEyFznFo8bmC_9t5itwyQnmqNTw&feature=emb_logo

          4. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            “When faced with a choice between conspiracy and incompetence as the source of a problem, incompetence is almost always the right choice.”

            Cdr. DJ Rippert, Sr (Ret) – my Dad.

          5. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            Goodness gracious – please don’t tell me that you’d like to use the Virginia state government’s IT operation as a benchmark for competence. How many months are they backed up on those relief checks right now?

            Any technician who tells a user that an outage or a slowdown is a “glitch” or “burp” is either an idiot or has such low respect for the user they feel free to say inane things.

        2. DJRippert Avatar
          DJRippert

          You claimed the Internet was down. That was in error. I am a tech guy so I addressed the fallacy.

          It seems to me that a good standard for uptime in schools performing virtual learning would be “four nines” or 99.99% uptime. That is not a particularly ambitious goal but seems reasonable from a price – performance perspective. Of course, that would include downtime for any reason, including the WiFi network.

          99.99% uptime allows for 52.6 minutes of downtime per year.

          I’m not sure how long the APS wireless network was down but that would eat into the 52.6 minutes / year. If it was down more than 52.6 minutes then the “four nines” goal would be impossible attain for the year being measured.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            yadda yadda yadda – don’t tell me the companies you were involved with never had outages…

            geeze… guy

            Also – when one says Wi-Fi – it’s usually with respect to one location – like your home or a cafe or some business.

            Would you call Wi-Fi at all WalMarts a “Wi-FI” system? So the Wi-Fi at ALL the Arlington school sites was down” That sounds like more than just a Wi-Fi issue to me.

          2. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            I’m telling you how to measure availability and an hour-long systematic WiFi outage is pretty bad in a “four nines’ world.

            I am confident, but not sure, that the Arlington WiFi’s connect to a central point (via an intranet or over the internet) for something – probably security. I am also confident that the central point failed which was called “all the WiFi’s being down’.

          3. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            yeah. WiFI’s don’t “fail” simultaneously at many disparate physical sites unless there is some server or software that controls and manages all of them.

            Such things fail on a regular basis over hill and dale , whether it’s GOOGLE or Comcast or some other TOm, Dick, and Harry.

            It’s not because Arlington Schools have bad breath and armpit odor more than others.

  2. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Around here, internet loss is usually preceded by screeching tires and the sound of crumpling metal and shattering glass.

    Then, the remainder of the time, it simply slows to a crawl followed immediately with a blizzard of emails from Cox saying that they can triple my UPPER LIMIT** for download speeds for only an extra $50/month… plus install home cameras, lights, and doorlocks for an yet another $100/month.

    ** this just means it COULD be faster if they wish.

  3. Bruce Majors Avatar
    Bruce Majors

    I will be curious to see if any EXPLANATION is forthcoming or if any local journalists will cover this. It turns out one hyperlocal blog, ArlingtonNow, covered this just a few seconds before BR got to it (though they don’t even raise the issue of why it happened or what it says about the schools): https://www.arlnow.com/2021/05/06/aps-experiencing-wireless-network-problems-at-schools/

    Arlington schools have continual small issues that impair connectivity with virtual students and sometimes even the functioning of Microsoft Teams and other products being used within the school as well. Fairly opaque apology letters from the various corporate vendors appear throughout the day, usually too late to tell parents at home that it is happening and that they should not worry that they alone are unable to join the online class.

    One assumes that all the independent and parochial schools in Arlington, which also mainly do “concurrent” teaching with a mix of online and in-class students in each class, had no problem, as wifi outside of the APS system was working. A question worth asking would be if the Catholic schools in NoVa are all on one central wifi system, as opposed to each having their own. I imagine they are decentralized, but I don’t know.

    Back in fall of 2019, pre-COVID, all Arlington schools closed suddenly one day for a broken water main. (I was going to teach that day so I just drove on to Falls Church, which always needs substitutes, as all the government schools do, and showed up and was immediately put to work.). I don’t know how bad a water main break it was – I can’t remember if restaurants closed over the possibility of contaminated water, but I doubt it. Either way it is embarrassing that a whole wealthy county in a developed country – and not even California or New York or Minnesota or some other deep code blue state with burning forests, or nursing home death mills, or homeless encampments on tot lots – shut down all its schools over one water main break.

  4. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    I cried when they took my chalk board away in 2005. It was so reliable.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Yes, but they gave us those wonderful smelling whiteboard markers that, by the end of the lecture, not only still smelled good but made everything feel good too…

      1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead

        Sharpies and permanent markers have a better buzz. I miss chalk dust. I miss filling a sixteen foot long chalk board every class. Erasing. Doing it again. 5 times a day. My right hand once had a vice grip. I could crack every knuckle in a hand shake with you.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Plus, tough with a DryErase to get that “Hey! Wake up!” screech. Chalk also is a good antacid.

        2. DJRippert Avatar
          DJRippert

          You’re so young. Mimeograph fluid was the real intoxicant. I had one teach swear she’d put it behind her ears if it would help her students pay more attention in class.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            I remember that. I also remember running kids running behind the truck spewing out DDT clouds… 😉

          2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            The mimeograph machine was auctioned off at Broad Run High in 1997. What a sad day. It never jammed or let you down, unlike the photocopiers the school had next. Always a beat up handme down from the Xeros HQ in Route 7. We were given 3 boxes of copy paper for the year. Hell that lasted 6 weeks. Every ream was out of my pocket after that.

  5. PassTheBuckBureaucrat Avatar
    PassTheBuckBureaucrat

    Your Wifi sucks! OMG! The Outrage! Talk about first world problems and urban privilege.

    When are you going to cover the real issues, like the shortage of chicken wings?

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Your Wifi sucks! OMG! The Outage!

    2. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      And chlorine for pools!

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