Despite multiple warnings that its computerized student information system was not ready for implementation, Los Angeles Unified School District officials moved ahead with the project anyway, leading to continuing glitches that have plagued teachers and students, according to a report released Thursday.
The seven-page report by The Viramontes Group, a consulting firm hired to provide oversight of the My Integrated Student Information System implementation, cited multiple instances of communication breakdowns and lack of input from district employees who would ultimately be the ones using the system.
“Throughout this project plan analysis and interviews, one theme continues to surface,” according to the report, which is dated Oct. 16 but released today. “There were not any indicators from the project team signifying a ‘no-go’ decision. In this initial review, several documents indicated a ‘red’ condition for certain deliverables, but when it came to the ‘go/no-go’ decision, project team leadership issued a ‘go.’ This indicates a lack of communication or understanding of application stability critical to implementation given the state of the project.”
Glitches with the MiSiS system have continued throughout the school year, at one point leading to a walkout at Jefferson High School, where students complained they were unable to register for classes they need to graduate, were assigned to duplicate courses or simply sent home or told to sit in a library for certain class periods.
Troubles with the system led to stepped-up political pressure on Superintendent John Deasy, who ultimately submitted his resignation. New Superintendent Ramon Cortines has vowed to resolve problems with the system, and he recently overhauled the team responsible for the implementation of MiSiS — accepting the resignation of the district’s top technology officer and canceling the contract of an outside consultant assigned to the project.
Cortines warned, however, that implementing solutions would take time. That was demonstrated this week, when the MiSiS system crashed for two hours on Tuesday afternoon. In a Wednesday letter to district staff, Cortines said any data that was entered into the system but was not saved during that time by teachers, such as student grades and attendance, would have to be re-entered.
The glitch prompted the district to delay the issuance of report cards by one week.
“As we continue to work through and resolve the MiSiS issues, going forward it is even more important that all end users be extra vigilant at regularly saving the data being entered into MiSiS,” Cortines wrote to district employees. “I would ask that while inputting data, you please try to save it every 15 minutes in the event that another unforeseen incident takes place.”
The consultant report noted that there appeared to be little flexibility during the MiSiS implementation period, with “little evidence that timelines and expectation were modified and communicated,” despite continuing software bugs.
The report also found there was a lack of attention on making the system user-friendly.
“There appeared to be a significant lack of input from the community of personnel that would eventually use the applications,” according to the report.
The consultants, while praising the “hard work and tireless hours put in” by district officials working on the system, questioned whether the district had dedicated enough resources to fix it.
“Without an adequate team of developers, quality assurance personnel, subject matter experts and dedicated stakeholders, timely problem resolution will be difficult,” according to the report.
Cortines noted in his letter to staff that he had reached out to Microsoft “to provide assistance with assessing our current problems with the MiSiS system.”
LA School Report, a news website focusing on the LAUSD, reported that Microsoft responded to Cortines’ request by sending one technician to review the system.
— City News Service