City Council oversight hearing on remote learning

Well, the New York City Council is trying to improve the way remote learning is handled in public schools. This after a remote school system failed during last month's snowstorm. Excuse me. Good Day's Robert Moses joins us now on the potential changes that could be coming. Good morning, Robert. Tishani and Dan, good morning to you. Well, one change proposed is staggering school start times so everyone isn't trying to log on all at once. That would likely prevent the debacle that occurred last month. The snowstorm that hit New York City on February 13th forced schools to pivot to remote learning. Things did not go well. The failure was the subject of a city council hearing yesterday. The Department of Education had a closet door when it needed a barn door. At over 2000 transactions per second, everyone tried to rush through that door at once. More than 2000 transactions per second far exceeded the 400 transactions per second spelled out in IBM's 2019 contract with the city. IBM had ramped that up to 1400 transactions a second at the start of this school year. Vanessa Hunt, the company's state executive for New York, pointed the finger at the city. And it was not a failure of IBM technology. Hunt's testimony contradicted what schools chancellor David Banks alleged last month. IBM was not ready for prime time. Some of the Department of Education employees who work under Banks testified yesterday. We are sorry we did not prevent this issue from arising. They defended their decision not to test the system in a way that could have anticipated the problems that arose last month. In the past, while we had superintendents test in all of their districts, we did not conduct a load test where all students and staff attempted to log in at the same time. This would have been a substantial undertaking that would have disrupted school and our families and staff time at home. There will inevitably be more remote learning days when all city students and staff have to log on. The DOE proposed a solution to avoid a repeat of what happened on the 13th. The immediate term plan includes the possibility of staggering start times on a remote learning day. Chancellor Banks promised, quote, we'll get it right for the next one. No word on if the city will definitely stagger those start times on the next learning day, whenever that might be. Tishani and Dan, back to you. Got to get it right. All right. Thank you very much, Robert.