Leander district to push back virtual classes for high school students due to ’technology issue’

Hojun Choi
Leander school district officials on Wednesday said technical difficulties has led officials to cancel class for high school students on Thursday and Friday.

High school students in the Leander school district will not be starting virtual classes on Thursday because of technical difficulties.

Officials said in a tweet Wednesday night that the district would not be having classes on Thursday and Friday as planned. The district — which serves multiple cities, including parts of Austin, Cedar Park and Round Rock — is currently scheduled to hold remote classes until Sept. 8.

Officials said elementary school students and middle school students will start virtual classes on Thursday as scheduled.

In a message posted Wednesday night on the district website, school officials said they ran into issues related to the district’s “web content filtering tool” required for virtual learning through laptops.

In cybersecurity, web content filtering tools help managers and administrators block access to dangerous or inappropriate online content.

Officials said the district recently upgraded its online content filtering tool to allow all of the laptops in the district to have online access at the same time. They said the company that provides the district with its content filtering service alerted officials late Wednesday about issues it had detected.

“On late Wednesday afternoon, our vendor notified us the solution they provided would not work. They learned about the malfunction after another school district lost functionality when they started school earlier this week,” the district said on its website.

Officials said the district will install additional servers to support the new tool starting Friday, adding they plan to start school on Monday.

Get our podcast for Austin’s latest headlines every morning

Want to hear Austin’s top news every weekday morning? Our Headline News Express podcast can be delivered to your home smart speaker or mobile device each weekday. Subscribe through Apple or Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify (or wherever you get your pods) or enable your Amazon Echo or Google Home smart speaker for news from the Austin American-Statesman.

Omny - https://omny.fm/shows/austin-headline-news-express/playlists/podcast/embed?style=cover