Schoology outages on Oct. 15 disrupted classes, panicked students, and caused several last minute lesson plan changes.

“I got a number of emails from students who were having concerns about not being able to access materials on schoology. During our classwork students were able to access materials but they had to go through Google Drive, so I was glad that I had assigned materials using Google,” World History teacher Elizabeth Evans said. 

Evans’ classroom wasn’t the only one that was affected. Outages took down more than half of many students’ classrooms, locking them out of important class materials and preventing them from completing work. While some classes, such as those that mainly use physical resources, were relatively untouched, other classes had to completely shift gears.

“I’m taking BC Calc right now. I didn’t bring my [physical] notes packet today and we had to work on the notes packets, so I went to my Schoology account to pull up the [digital] notes and it wasn’t there. Since [Schoology] was down I couldn’t [access my notes],” senior Emily Hao said.

Hao had difficulties in both calculus and Geosystems. In both cases she was forced to turn to using other resources, such as notes brought by a friend or in classroom textbooks.

Hao expressed concern over Schoology’s maintenance and her lack of faith in the platform isn’t an uncommon view in the student body. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens two or three more times,” Hao said.

Beyond that, many teachers are also making backup plans.

“I’m relieved that this happened on a Friday because it means that it’s more likely that things will get fixed before school next week. [If it doesn’t] it will certainly require adjustments, and may have to create a Google Classroom which is something I haven’t done this year,” Evans said.

Despite the problems with Schoology, most classrooms were able to eventually return to their planned lessons. While the threat of impending Schoology shutdowns is yet another stress students will have to deal with, most teachers and staff have been able to adjust, and most classes can continue as planned.

“I really appreciate the flexibility and adaptability of our students because it meant what could have been a really difficult issue to deal with today – for me at least – was not,” Evans said.