Everybody screws up

Yesterday was a very, very long day.

As a result of some miscommunication, a missed meeting due to snow days, some key personnel out of the district, a new demand by the state for an additional report, and misplaced priorities, we scheduled an update to our Infinite Campus student information system Monday evening. In the middle of end-of-term stress time for getting report cards done. Without notifying any teachers we were doing it. 

Surprise! In the middle of trying to get my grades done, my IC stops working. 

So starting Monday evening, I got e-mails. Most succinct. most very polite. most very descriptive of the havoc the update was causing. Most asking "Why, for heaven's sake, did you schedule an update in the middle of grading time?" Adding salt to the wound, we found that our custom progress reports didn't make the upgrade, so some school secretaries wound up re-printing progress reports.

Luckily, 99% of the problems teachers were having after the new upgrade were solved by simply clearing their browser's cache and cookies. ("Clear on close" from now on will be our default setting.) As catastrophes go, this one could have been much, much worse. I am not aware of anyone who lost data.

So what's the point?

The point is that even a crack teams of professionals make mistakes. I would put my team up against any school in the country when it comes to making systems reliable and secure. They are great problem-solvers and communicators. What happened yesterday was an anomaly. 

This was a managemental error. It would not have happened had I made sure a couple simple rules were in place and enforced - 1) everyone gets notified of a program upgrade at least three days in advance, and 2) no upgrades two week prior to the end of any grading period.  These kinds of screw-ups never should happen - or if they do, they should only happen once.

If managemental errors are too common in your school, the system isn't learning from its mistakes.