In the past two weeks, many students have opened their computers and saw the same thing: an error message saying their access to Google Classroom is denied, resulting in frustrated students and teachers, where some even had to change their lesson plans to help with the problem
As of October 27, students whose parents or guardians didn’t turn in the Beginning of the Year packet lost access to all Google workspace apps. Students have not been able to do any work and their teachers have had to print papers out for those who don’t have access to their accounts. This has made many teachers and students very frustrated.
Sophomore Jayana Shoals is one of the many students who are currently affected. “For me, not being able to use, like, the computer and stuff, it was like hard because I couldn’t use it for 2 weeks and my grades were dropping so badly. Like right now I have a F in my class because of it.”
Shoals was reminded by teachers to get the form completed, but she said that because her mom works at night, she wasn’t able to get it signed in time.
Teachers have also been affected and some have needed to make adjustments to their lessons to allow all students to do their work.
Joe Soto is a graphic design teacher who has been affected by this problem. “All of the work is on the computer, so it’s very hard to get around it.” He has had to change his plans for class because he has to wait until everyone is able to use their computer.
Soto believes that this process should have happened earlier to avoid disruption. “All these steps to kind of fix the whole, you know, getting the packet, should have been done a lot earlier in the year just to not interrupt the students once they’re kind of on a roll.”
Tim Barnes agrees that timing is the main issue. “It’s not the school as much as it’s the district, the district needs to communicate to the staff sooner than October.”
Tim Barnes teaches different subjects, one of them being Law and Society. His students normally use their computer for an assignment they do everyday. Barnes said, “I haven’t changed my plans for class, but I’ve had to print paper out for the people who can’t use their computer which gives me more work.”
Lindsay Kumar, Administrator of Instructional Technology, first informed administrators, teachers and support staff about the Google permission slips in an email sent on July 30, later reiterating on August 6 that the forms needed to be completed by September 30. According to Technology and Innovation Services Executive Director Paoze Lee, after-school sessions were held during the week of October 13 at SUSD’s four comprehensive high schools to help parents and guardians complete the required forms.
In an October 30 update, Lee reported that 60% of students, or 19,746, had completed their Beginning of Year (BoY) packet, while 83% of students and their parents had active ParentVUE accounts. This indicates that 40% of Stockton Unified students had not yet submitted their BoY packet. The district’s Technology and Innovation Synergy Team continues to send weekly updates to teachers identifying which students still need to sign their forms.
Sarah Gutierrez, a teacher, wanted to make this issue easier to solve. Gutierrez printed out instructions of steps for parents to follow and asked her students for a parent signature. ”The challenge of it is the parents or guardians that need to fill it out, not the students. But teachers are asking the students to do it, so there’s kind of like a miscommunication between the two.”
Jory Kamp is a 9th grade student in Soto’s class, and while he was affected by this problem, he was able to solve the issue himself. Kamp filled out the packet for his parents because they aren’t the best with technology. “It wasn’t too hard for me, I’ve always done the technology stuff for my parents so I already knew all the information,” Kamp said.
