Breaking News- School wide crisis: No wifi
by Ardhys De Leon, Editor-in-Chief
“I have a paperless classroom, so this forced me to think on my feet to readjust my classes. [I’ve been using my phone] but it doesn’t have the same capacity as my computer. Overall thank god for iphones,” English teacher Ms. Sackstein said.
All New York City public schools get their wifi from the Department of Education (DOE). When technology specialist Mr. Myrtle called the DOE a second time during 7th period to get more information on the issue, he was notified that this was not only affecting WJPS. It has been estimated that there must be at least 500-700 schools who are facing this issue.
According to the DOE, there had been power outages in a section of Queens and the Bronx. However, not all schools in Queens were affected. It is unclear why this outage occurred nor why it affected WJPS.
Mr. Myrtle came to the conclusion that the outage in the Bronx is what affected the school. This is due to the fact that in the past when there were outages in Queens, the school was not affected but when there was one in the Bronx, it was.
“There are two sects of Queens and a third one that might be linked to the Bronx. Our school could be getting the wifi from the third one and that might be the reason why we lost the wifi today,” technology specialist Mr. Myrtle said.
Office Computers were the only one spared, since they are connected to a different line, separate from the school’s wifi. This allowed for the school to continue functioning as the main office, the college suit and the administration’s offices were still connected.
“I’m running around like a maniac trying to find computers with internet and alternative ways of accessing my resources,” social studies teacher Mr. Sosa said.
It is unclear as to when this issue will be resolved, some speculate that it could be due to the weather since it snowed Sunday evening and it froze over throughout the night. The DOE has confirmed that the issue is being worked on by its own trucks and Verizon.
“I hope this gets resolved soon, broadcast wasn’t able to access their scripts online, so we couldn’t record our voice overs or finish our stories and the highlight is on Wednesday,” senior Salvatore Pitino said.