Miami-Dade County Faces Issues During First Two Days Of Virtual Classes

Miami-Dade County Schools students once again faced technical issues during their second day of virtual classes on Tuesday.

The district reported its internet service was interrupted early Tuesday morning, causing more than 160,000 students and 10,000 teachers to lose service. Miami-Dade County Schools said it was working with its internet provider, Comcast, to determine what caused the outages.

"Our internet service was intermittently interrupted early this morning," Miami-Dade County Schools tweeted. "It is operational at this time. We're working with our service provider, @comcast, to determine the root cause. As of 9 a.m, more than 160,000 students & over 10,000 teachers were logged on the K12 platform."

Miami-Dade County students began the 2020-21 school year virtually on Monday due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and also faced technical issues on the first day of classes, WPLG Local 10 reports. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told Local 10 that there was an issue between the data center and the internet provider on Monday.

“Obviously we hoped a massive endeavor of this scale would go flawlessly, but technology is something we are all dealing with these days,” Carvalho said.

The superintendent added that students, parents and teachers who were able to access the system didn't report any issues on Monday, according to Local 10. Carvalho said Miami-Dade County Schools provided an alternate link to the portal website for anyone still experiencing issues during the first day of classes.

“We know what the problem is, but we do not have as of yet, and I want to be perfectly clear and honest, one of the greatest disappointments for me as a superintendent, that we do not have yet a solution,” Carvalho said.

Last week, Carvalho said Miami-Dade County Schools could be reopening school buildings sooner than initially thought amid a reduction of positive COVID-19 cases in the county. At the time, Miami showed seven days of a positivity rate of less than 10%.

"We are very confident we are going to be able to move that deadline up sometime to the middle of September at the latest," Carvalho told the Miami-Herald.

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