Some RHS Classes are STILL Without Internet

Multiple classes across the Rialto High School campus are experiencing internet outages. Staff and students are scattered throughout the campus in response to the outages. Some teachers are taking their students to sit outside at the lunch tables and around the quad, to the library or to visit the desert habitat while others are opting to stay in their classrooms and try to get work completed using alternate methods.

Teachers still have no idea what is wrong with the internet, and some have only heard rumors. English teacher Robert Ponce says, “I heard a rumor, that it was due to a maintenance issue, somebody cut a wire by accident, but it could be a rumor.”

While some teachers were only just affected, some classrooms in the E building were without an internet connection all of last week as well.

Caleb Hernandez, Rialto High School’s IT specialist says that he was notified about this issue September 24. He says, “Teachers were contacting me and letting me know that students were not able to connect to the WiFi.” At that time a total of seven classrooms were affected by this. Now, others have been added to the list and they are not secluded to the E building.

Hernandez also states, “We thought we had this issue resolved by rebooting the network, but it looks like there is something else and an investigation is needed.” The investigation is still pending and the district sent a specialist who has yet to resolve the issue.

Staff members believe it is extremely important that this issue be resolved as soon as possible, so they can go back to teaching using the internet, which is the district’s preferred method of instruction in order to keep potential exposure of germs and viruses to a minimum.

Freshman Andres Garcia says, “My classmates were pretty annoyed that there wasn’t any internet, because we had to go outside to do our work.” He also says that “the weather is always hot” and “it's been pretty boring and we don’t get much work done,” although it is different for each class.

Junior Yamilth Montes says that her WiFi never went out and has no issues, meaning not all classes were affected by this. Spanish teacher Yanira Figueroa says, “All of my students had no issues throughout the week and we were able to work on everything without any problems occurring.”

Junior Dakota Giselbach says, “It’s hard being without the internet because we went from being used to working online because of distance learning, but now with the internet not working it’s hard because we can’t work on our assignments.” Junior Airam Diaz says, “Class has been more difficult because we have been working on regular paper rather than doing our work on Google Classroom. None of our assignments would load or we wouldn’t be able to work on some assignments because the page is blocked.”

Other students, however, don’t find being without the internet as difficult, junior Alyssa Vigil says, “It just feels like we went back to Pre-Covid so it hasn’t been that bad.” Junior Kyle states that his class in the E building doesn’t feel any different from the other classes he has, in which the internet does work.

Telma Cross, a Spanish teacher at Rialto High School, was aware of the situation on Monday, September 27. She says, “I, fortunately, had all the lessons on paper so I was able to give the students whose laptops weren’t working the materials they needed to work throughout the week.” She explained that she didn’t know why the internet was out but that she hopes that it is able to get fixed soon. She stated that she isn’t enjoying her classes without the internet because it is very hard for her to teach.

Most teachers were left to fend for themselves as the administration did not let them know what was going on, nor did they accommodate those affected classrooms. English teacher Erika Campos was frustrated by this, and by day three of the internet being out she still hadn’t completed her lessons. She shares, “English textbooks are online, including the novel we are reading in class. The dialectical journals they have been working on are online. Grades are due and I need to grade this work in a timely manner.”

With grades being due this Friday, teachers have been working non stop to get the grades in and finish their lessons before grades are due. Unfortunately, some teachers in the E building, and now other teachers across campus who have been affected by this cannot access grades in their classrooms since the internet is having issues, and many have to resort to grading from home instead of during their given prep time.

Ms. Campos shares, “I understand that these things happen. But what I don’t understand is why the teachers who had this issue all week were not relocated to an air-conditioned room. There are plenty of empty spaces we could have been moved to, like the theater! I was curious if the admin was aware of what was happening. And if so, why weren’t they trying to accommodate our classes?”

Dr. Dawn Bowman, the administrator over technology, stated that she did know about the situation and that “admin addresses things immediately.” She immediately sent out a work order to the IT department at the district. Once she sends out the work order, the district sends their IT specialist to work on the situation and try to fix the problem as soon as they can, but sometimes it takes time to find the problem. She explains that administration is trying to accommodate all of the classes in the E building that don’t have internet, but there are no empty classes on campus. She encourages those affected to try and be patient.

IT specialist Hernandez states, “This issue is similar to the Malware of 2020.” In that case, students lost two weeks of school because of malware on the district's computers.

When dealing with technology, issues can happen at any time, and though this will be fixed, it may take a while. Investigations are still pending, thus leaving some classrooms without an internet connection until further notice.