By Ayla Ozturk
On Tuesday, February 7, 2023, schools across Tulare County experienced a network outage.
VISALIA, CA– On Tuesday, February 7, Visalia Unified School District [VUSD] and other school districts across the county were impacted by an internet outage.
According to Adam Brown, VUSD Coordinator of Information Technology [IT] Systems, the district’s data center overheated. District maintenance technicians resolved the cooling issue that morning.
Coincidentally, AT&T reported an attempt of theft and vandalism to fiber optic cable and other equipment.
Fiber optic cables transmit data in the form of light. If the line is disconnected or cut, the connected networks lose their internet connection.
“The damage was done in Del Rey (a little town between [Visalia] and Fresno), and apparently our service runs through that area,” Brown said in an email to staff.
AT&T needed to repair equipment and replace a large portion of fiber optic cable.
Micheal White is a teacher at Redwood High School. He instructs Chemistry and Advanced Placement [AP] Environmental Science.
“[The outage] makes it more difficult, but luckily we were just giving a test today, and we had already decided to do it on paper,” White says. “It’s an inconvenience, but we persevere.”
Jeany Smith supervises students taking Edgenuity courses. Edgenuity is an online platform that allows students to recover credits from classes they may have failed.
“[The class’s] whole program is online. So right now, we’re having to turn this into a study hall for other students to work on missing assignments,” Smith says. “It’s also hard for teachers to be able to do what they have planned because of the outage.”
Elizabeth Forsythe teaches AP English Language and Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum [ERWC].
“We have our stuff on Google Docs. We really don’t have access to anything that we do, so we really can’t do anything,” she says. “[AP English Language] doesn’t have a book, and [ERWC] doesn’t have a book. There’s nothing that we could do.”
Forsythe says, “VUSD needs to invest in their infrastructure with the internet, or else we’re gonna have these problems consistently.”
Ayla Ozturk
Ayla Ozturk, class of 2024, is a fourth-year journalism student passionate about leading the News section. She is dedicated to informing students and amplifying their voices through Government and Politics writing.
You can reach her at ayla.oz3769@vusd.us.
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