Technical glitch delays remote learning in NYC during snowstorm

A technical glitch blocked New York City’s almost million schoolchildren from logging onto remote classes during Tuesday’s snowstorm, a day after Mayor Eric Adams ordered school buildings closed for the day but declined to cancel classes outright.

On what was the school system’s first online learning day since the COVID-19 pandemic, most students and their families who were trying to log on were greeted with error messages starting before 8 a.m.: “Service unavailable.”

By midday, most were able to log on, said Schools Chancellor David Banks, and thousands had no problem whatsoever. But they were in the minority.

Banks said the “challenging morning” was the fault of IBM. City officials had warned IBM to expect almost a million people logging on between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., he said.

“IBM is the one who authenticates the users and the usernames. And in a word, IBM was not ready for prime time. And that's what happened here,” Banks said, speaking at a late-morning news conference at New York city hall. He added: “IBM’s response that we didn't realize, you know, over 900,000 kids were going to get on at the same time. Duh? That's what this was for and that's what we were preparing for.”

IBM did not respond to questions about what happened and who is to blame.

In an email, IBM spokeswoman Sarah Minkel wrote: “IBM has been working closely with New York City schools to address this situation as quickly as possible. The issues have been largely resolved, and we regret the inconvenience to students and parents across the city.”

Banks said the school system had done a test run but conceded that IBM had not been part of it.

Out east, most Long Island schools were closed outright due to the storm, with a minority having delayed opening or switching to remote learning, according to Newsday’s online tracker.

On Monday, at a snow preparedness news conference, Adams explained why he didn’t want to close the schools by recalling his childhood during the snow in the city.

“Listen, snow days, my mother had to walk us to school with her arthritic knees. If you are a parent … and you are not willing to navigate a computer for your child, that's a sad commentary. That's a sad commentary,” Adams said.

“Clicking on, figuring out how to navigate that, using it as a teaching moment on how to get it online and how to get it up, showing our children that difficulties come and we overcome that, that is what it's all about,” Adams said.

Less than a day later, as the online system was failing, hundreds of comments flooded the city public school system’s social media postings that were relaying updates.

“Next time, avoid these problems with having a regular snow day,” posted @ElgaCastro, adding the hashtag: “#restoresnowdays.”

User @Lek1982 posted: “it’s the first snow in ages — LET THEM ENJOY IT AND PLAY!!!!!”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.