Edline’s Debut Glitch Causes Confusion Among Wilton Parents

The Wilton School District took a technological leap late last week by posting The effort, however, received some criticisms from parents who had difficulty finding out which teachers their children would have come fall, or who were provided with spotty or incorrect information about their children’s schedules.

“The fact [is] that we had to hear about it through friends posting on Facebook, and then everyone went nuts. In this town, getting your teacher placement is Christmas, Easter and Hanukkah all rolled up into one, so it went so viral, everyone went bananas when they heard it was up,” said Michele Bennett, who has two children in the district.

Matt Hepfer, the Director of Technology for the district, acknowledged there were initial problems.

“I don’t think we expected it to be perfect the first time, but I think we expect to improve every time we do something, and I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons,” said Hepfer. “Until we go live, we’re not going to know what’s unclear to parents, so we have that experience now, and going forward we’ll be better.”

Information first appeared online early Thursday morning, reportedly before it was ready to be released. School officials temporarily disabled the site when droves of parents started calling and emailing with difficulties.

 “Half the [schedule] information was up, half was wrong, classes were left out, and there was no color,” recounted Jami Ginsburg, a parent with a child in Middlebrook, about what happened when she logged on to Edline during the glitch.

“The fact that Edline went down for a day or that they had some problems putting it up added to the community angst,” said Loralyn Cropper, who has one child at Cider Mill and another entering Middlebrook.

Fixing the problem

Hepfer said they tried to address the Middlebrook issue quickly.

“The data we had up was incorrect, but it was only up for at the most 25 minutes or so. But in the world of people being able to log on and go onto Facebook and things, 25 minutes can be an eternity. We took it down as soon as we saw there was an issue. We live in a technical world, and sometimes you get a glitch like that,” said Hepfer.

Hepfer reiterated that school officials had hoped by posting teacher placement online, they would encourage parents to use the website as a primary means of communication with the schools.

“One main focus was to really get parents in the habit of logging in. That way we could start using [Edline] as a tool for communicating with parents, moving towards more modern forms of communication than what we’ve done in the past,” said Hepfer.

Still, some parents were clearly frustrated.

“There was no explanation as to what to do when you got in to your account, which took about four emails to different people and calls to Miller-Driscoll to find out how to actually get in there. All the parents should have gotten an email in advance describing what we should do,” said Lisa Smith.

News about teacher assignments is anticipated among some parents, and it generally drives a midsummer spike in chatter on social networks. Tech-savvy Wilton parents took to Facebook as soon as the information appeared online early Thursday, quickly spreading the news that it was accessible.

Parents who had students moving up from one school to another also were confused by the need to now use a completely different access code and set up a new account for that child.

“Why can’t they just keep the same account for the whole time in the school system? For Chartwells, they have the same account number from when they enter kindergarten to when they graduate high school. Why can’t Edline do this?” said Smith.

Hepfer said that the schools tried to be responsive and understanding, even setting up an assistance video for parents.

“This is new for parents and it’s also new for us,” he said. “We were prepared that it may not be perfect the first time through. But we appreciate that the parents who did call were patient with us and gave us some feedback so we could change things. We made ongoing changes; we made clarifications and even a help video. We may have not been happy with how things were going Friday, but by Friday evening and Saturday, things were much improved.”

There were also some parents who didn’t have problems, and found the sought-after information quickly.

“The system worked for me,” Tracy Taylor said via Facebook message. Taylor will have two children at Miller-Driscoll in September.

“They stuck to the date they announced in June, although I am sad that the first grade class lists weren’t up [as of Friday]. I wasn't bummed after the assignments went up and down quickly, I realize it was a bug; although I did get to see our teacher’s name [early Thursday],” said Taylor.

By late afternoon on Saturday, the schools had started responding on their home pages.

Miller-Driscoll apologized for any inconvenience with a “Don’t Panic!” headline, and posted a clarifying update. The Middlebrook and Cider Mill websites also acknowledged the mistake. Middlebrook promised to mail official schedules out in mid August, and Cider Mill announced that class lists would be given out at a student walk-through the week prior to school starting.

Knowing that there have been tech glitches already, Tom Ford, Assistant Principal at Cider Mill is only willing to guarantee the lists will be available at the walk-throughs; however, he’s keeping his fingers crossed that if all goes well, parents might get to see the lists online in advance.

 “We just want to make sure that everything is working correctly before we post them. When we have them posted, we will email parents with directions on how to access them through the website,” said Ford.

Feedback concerns, opportunities

Several parents urged administrators to seek parents’ feedback on helping work out the kinks in the system for the next time.

“They could put together a parent focus group to create a plan for next year. The Wilton Schools can figure this out; if they reach out and listen to the parents, it’s possible to come up with a system where everyone will be happy,” Cropper said.

Bennett made similar suggestions. “Maybe they should have a parent focus group—ask us how we want to use Edline, because a lot of us were frustrated.”

However, Hepfer said that a long-standing plan is to collect and respond to Edline’s users’ feedback

“The website committee is actually going to be doing a pretty comprehensive survey once we are one year into the website, which is November. We thought it was premature to get feedback until we were one year into it,” said Hepfer.

While some parents may be eager to know all the specifics for next year, there’s still enough time to figure things out before school begins, especially if parents are patient.

Debbie Hunsberger, a parent with older children, offered her experience and wisdom when she tried to put it in perspective for the others in her Facebook post: “This is nothing, just wait until you’re waiting for college acceptance letters.”