FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — “Please help.”
That was the subject line of an email Joyce Cripe sent WANE 15 after hearing that her students' hard-earned grades from Jan. 1 to March 18 were lost due to a technical issue.
“I couldn't believe it at first,” Kreip said.
She claims the district held an assembly to inform students of the news.
“I'm just deviating from what the students said. They were basically told they were given a gift with a clean slate, with no grades counted from January to March 17th. ,” Kreip said. “My daughters called me right away.”
Cripe had become increasingly frustrated with the school district and what she called a lack of transparency in its proceedings.
“We wanted to know who the company was that was trying to recover the data, what Plan B was, about dual credit classes,” Kreip said. “It was really confusing.”
The district itself was also clearly feeling the losses caused by a brownout, a loss of power similar to a power outage.
“We had a power outage on March 17th, and it appears to have been some kind of power surge that burned out one of our servers,” said Tim Pivarnik, Wicco Community Schools Superintendent. “He discovered that PowerSchool, our student information system, held all the information, from grades to student data attendance reports. That file crashed.”
This is true not only for the main file but also for backups.
“It was a perfect storm,” Pivarnik said.
In the absence of good news, it was unclear whether the district would be able to recover what was lost, but hours before Monday's school board meeting, the district received a fortuitous message.
“Two hours ago, I was cautiously optimistic,” Pivarnik said of the good news before announcing it at Monday's school board meeting. “We're back to where we started and in a really good place…According to forensic experts, all student data and grades have been recovered and all will be returned home.”
Pivarnik said the message came from Ontrack, a data recovery company the district used to find lost or corrupted files. He said Ontrack told the district that all the missing files were on the hard drive and the next step was to put them back into Whitko's PowerSchool software.
“We haven't gotten it yet, but I hear they got it to me, so I'm pretty optimistic,” Pivarnik said.
But 15 Finds Out has learned that the district is aiming to do more than just solve current problems.
“How can we make sure something like this never happens again at Witko?” Pivarnik said.
Pivarnik said the district plans to work with Winona Lakes' Winona IT to strengthen backup systems and protect data to avoid similar situations in the future.
At the school board meeting, a concerned Kreipe asked Pivarnik if the district was considering using cloud-based storage, which he said was an option.
“They're going to do a thorough investigation of all of our systems, all of our hard drives, all of our hardware, all of our servers,” Pivarnik said. “What is the root cause of this, what created this perfect storm, and what upgrades need to be made to prevent this from happening again?”
In the meantime, teachers will have to catch up on entering grades.
“Teachers have not been able to register any updated grades or assignments in PowerSchool since returning from spring break and before,” Pivarnik said. “There is a backlog out there that needs to be addressed.”
To make data entry more manageable, Pivarnik said the district is optimizing class time to give teachers time to catch up on all outstanding input.
“I'm going to meet with principals and put together a hybrid schedule program for the next week or so. I'm going to find a way to give teachers time to get all their grades up to par, including a later start.” said Pivarnik.
As for Kreib, the result is a victory.
“I felt very relieved,” Kreip said.
But she continues to push for more transparency.
“My takeaway is you absolutely have to advocate for your kids,” Kreip said. “If something this big is going on at our school, we expect full disclosure.”