LA Unified racing to fix MiSiS issues before school starts next week
Mike Szymanski | August 13, 2015
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Only days before the school year begins, there are still about 319 known issues to deal with LAUSD’s troubled computer system, MiSiS, and school officials said they are working diligently to fix them.
“We have made heroic, heroic progress with the MiSiS system,” said Diane H. Pappas, Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Planning and Digital Innovation. She took over the issues of the problem-plagued $133.6 million computer program that stands for My Integrated Student Information System.
In addition, a report generated by MiSiS on Thursday showed that 14,107 students still do not have schedules, with the first school bells of the year set to ring on Aug. 18.
Pappas said districts are still gathering enrollment information and master schedules from various sources — the main reason for the students lacking schedules, she said, not a computer glitch. Of course with nearly 700,000 students to deal with, that is only about 2 percent of the entire school population.
“The fact that we know there are that many students without schedules actually shows that MiSiS is working,” Pappas said. “That number is extremely fluid at this time, and it will be very different before school starts. Those numbers will jump all over.”
Superintendent Ray Cortines vowed at his annual address earlier this week to have the computer issues fixed before school begins to avoid the problems that plagued the start of school last year. At his address, he introduced the MiSiS team of workers, some who have come out of retirement and some who will be working long hours and over the weekend to make sure remaining issues are fixed.
“We will be dealing with about 100 of those issues just tonight,” Pappas said.
Until recently, the MiSiS updates were available for the general public to see, but Pappas said the district halted the release because the latest data dealt with students’ personal information.
Cortines was issuing updates himself during the summer, the last update dated June 19. The memos went to all the teachers and administrators in the school district.
Of the six newly-drawn Local Districts, the East district has the most students without schedules at the moment, with 3,523 students, followed by the West with 2,600. The South district recorded the fewest, with 1,553 students identified without schedules. There will not be 14,000 students without schedules on the first day of school, officials said.
“No, the superintendent would not have that,” Pappas assured.