'Bumpy' Ride With LTHS Technology Last Fall: Official

La Grange IL

13 January, 2022

1:04 PM

Description

LA GRANGE, IL — Lyons Township High School said this week it had assurances that its internet bandwidth would be upgraded in time for the opening of school last August. That did not happen. The increased bandwidth was particularly important because of the expectation of greatly increased internet traffic at the school. It was the first semester in which the school was assigning a Chromebook to each student. The timeline for the expanded bandwidth was changed a number of times to accommodate delays in equipment and manpower issues, according to the school. Officials were also dealing with the school's changing relationship with a collection of other local entities on internet services. "So with the delayed internet bandwidth, that was very challenging at the start of the year. There's no doubt about it," Scott Eggerding, the school's director of curriculum and instruction, told the school board Monday. "It was not a great start in that sense, but it really has turned a corner." He noted the school assigned Chromebooks to all students in a year's time, rather than the three years originally planned. When the problems were at their worst, he said, the school's tech team received 500 emails about issues in one week. As a result of the issues, he said students had a negative view of ClassLink, the main program. Asked about the tech team, Eggerding said the school suffered "growing pains with them as well." "Anytime you've got really intelligent people in the same room with differing opinions about how things go, that's when you have some challenges. That's what we had in the fall. We were also down some techs," he said. "On top of it, things weren't working right. It was a little bumpy in the fall." Now, he said the tech team is preparing for upgrades to the school's WiFi. Superintendent Brian Waterman commended the school's tech team, saying they dealt with a bad situation that resulted in "a lot of turbulence" with technology and internet access.