Online student portal back up after experiencing issues for second time

NORTH CAROLINA — A statewide online student information system is back working after experiencing technology issues for the second time, just days into the new school year, according to North Carolina officials.

North Carolina’s public schools returned to class with most students still learning at home to start the year due to continued worries about COVID-19. Nearly all schools in K-12 districts began classes on Monday.

The first day was marked initially by problems entering NCEDCloud, an online portal to access several digital applications for students and teachers. The issue was resolved by around noon.

On Wednesday morning, schools reported experiencing additional issues with NCEDCloud, which resulted in many students not being able to log in to their classes.

State Superintendent Mark Johnson sent out a release just after noon saying the system was working again. He also said the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction will be working with the vendor, Identity Automation, and the North Carolina Department of Information Technology to make sure the glitches are resolved in the days ahead.

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STATEMENT FROM SUPERINTENDENT MARK JOHNSON:

“It’s bad enough that so many students don’t have the option to attend school in-person, but malfunctions of the tool that so many schools use to access remote learning are simply unacceptable.

These are challenging times, and everyone is trying to extend more grace. That’s what Identity Automation, the vendor, got on Monday, the first time their remote learning tool went down.

Parents, educators, and students are all doing the best that we can and deserve technology that works. While we are limited in terms of what we can do immediately, rest assured that DPI will be having blunt discussions about these failures with the vendor and NC DIT in the days ahead.”

DPI selected Identity Automation after an RFP process in 2013.

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Union County Public Schools and the Anson County School district said some of their students were impacted by the outages.

In a statement sent to parents, Union County said “We understand your concerns as this portal is the gateway to virtual classes.”

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UNION COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS STATEMENT:

“Good morning,

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is experiencing technology issues with the NCEDCloud portal and many students are not able to log on at this time. The UCPS Technology Services team is in communication with the state to get this issue resolved immediately. We understand your concerns as this portal is the gateway to virtual classes. We will provide an update as soon as more information is available.

Thank you.”

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At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Roy Cooper addressed the lack of internet access and technical issues that students and parents are running into during the first week of school.

Like the state superintendent, he also called the glitches “unacceptable.”

“It really is unacceptable to have those kinds of tech glitches when you’re trying to do remote learning,” he said. “It has to be frustrating to teachers students and parents. DPI is responsible for that. I know our department of IT has offered assistance to them if they need it. I know that it needs to be fixed because our students learning remotely need to have that kind of connection with their school.”

To help combat connection issues, Cooper announced $12 million to expand internet access through two programs: The GREAT Grant program and COVID-19 Recovery Act funding. The money is expected to connect an additional 8,000 families and more than 250 businesses, farms & community institutions in 11 counties.

State officials said while they were investigating it as an urgent issue, all other applications such as PowerSchool and Canvas were still fully functional and available.

Powerschool is used to maintain student records and “effectively manage school processes,” according to the North Carolina Department of Instruction’s website. It tracks student attendance, course registration and student transcripts.

Canvas is a tool that summarizes assignments and announcements.

Another issue that has popped up during remote learning is zoom bombing. That’s when someone who isn’t a student gets into the video chat used for teaching and does something inappropriate like curse at a teacher.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools confirmed to Channel 9 that is is aware of some reports of it happening and is looking into the issue.

Check back with wsoctv.com for updates.

Online portal access troubles mark first day of NC public schools

Cox Media Group