D.C. Schools Covid-Test Portal Crashes ahead of Return to Classroom
The Covid-19 online testing portal for the Washington, D.C. public school system crashed Tuesday as tens of thousands of teachers and students scrambled to upload their results ahead of the district’s return to the classroom on Thursday.
The mass-testing regime, which the DCPS administration and teachers’ unions lobbied to implement amid the Omicron wave that’s been spreading across the city, is already experiencing technical problems.
“**ALERT: The Safe Return portal for staff to submit test results is currently experiencing issues for some users. We apologize for this inconvenience, and we are working to resolve the issues. We will provide an update as soon as possible on next steps. Thank you for your cooperation and patience.**,” the DCPS website reads.
School re-opening following winter break was postponed to Thursday after a Snow Emergency was declared for the area Monday. All students must submit proof of Covid-19 test, no matter if the result is negative or positive, by Wednesday. Students must test negative to be eligible to return for in-person learning Thursday.
“…dcps wants thousands of teachers to upload test results today, tens of thousands of families to upload them tomorrow, and the website is already down. as if we didn’t see this coming. what a mess,” an individual who claims to be a teacher for DCPS wrote on Twitter.
Another constituent who appears to be a member of the Washington Teachers’ Union tweeted, “In a shocking turn of events the system to upload negative tests isn’t working for a lot of @dcpublicschools teachers. Hmmm who could’ve called this?”
A teacher at H.D. Woodson High School tweeted, “I am on my second attempt to upload the photo from my Rapid test result today and… I don’t think it is working. Tried multiple devices. This isn’t good… What do they think is about to go down tomorrow? @_DCHealth – what should I do? @dcpublicschools – is there a backup plan?”
For those who have trouble or are unable to access the website, DCPS says they can bring a copy of their negative results to the school and staff will assist with uploading them.
There are 49,890 enrolled students in the district, all of whom must be tested in the next 24 hours, according to DCPS. Parents and faculty were not optimistic about the district’s technology capabilities ahead of the deadline.
A woman who identified herself as a DCPS parent tweeted, “DCPS expects >50k students to get tested on Tuesday & their families to upload the results to DCPS website, then for schools to review online results and figure out system for enforcing when kids show up Weds. We’ll see how that goes…”
While schools are scheduled to re-open Thursday, teachers’ unions are already lobbying against the return to in-person learning. DC Core, a caucus of the Washington Teachers’ Union, which is an affiliate of national union American Federation of Teachers, circulated a petition and poll early this week to gauge support among members for striking against returning to school this week. Out of the 150 who have responded so far, 81 percent favor suspending in-person instruction temporarily.
Over 450,000 students in cities including Newark, N.J., Atlanta, Ga., and Cleveland, Ohio, resumed remote learning in the first week of January after returning from holiday vacation, the New York Times reported on Monday.
