Catastrophe; Day of Silence; NewSchool

Best of times, worst of times?

Good news:
The Day of Silence was a hit! 100 T-shirts (hand stencilled by tolerance loving students!) went quickly, the 500 red wrist bands were a hit, the balloon arch was wonderful and it went over great. Luckily, because this GSA advisor was down in San Diego doing a walk through of the NewSchool of Architecture and Design on the big day.

NewSchool is a wonderful little (600 student) architecture school in the heart of San Diego (the trolley splits the campus). The main building is the old "Hang Ten" warehouse building (if you remember Hang Ten- I do, loved my terrycloth shirt. Missing it right now!).

NewSchool wins awards and is known for their intense students and focus- now they are adding a Digital Media Arts program (just right for my Digital Photography kids, I think). I've always wanted to be an architect, so finding out about the masters program was cool, too.

Rob and I stayed at the Britt Scripps Inn- a B&B that was very affordable, wonderfully done, right in the big middle of everything, and a great choice if you're visiting San Diego. The breakfasts are excellent- Rob recommends the colossal delightful bathtub.

The Catastrophe?
Our common drive went down over Spring Break at the school. So, all the teacher (and student, and administrator, and office personnel) data is gone. It wasn't backed up.

It just wasn't. Our technology department has told the staff that the server was 'safe', but it turns out that they knew the drive wasn't backed up. There was 'too much data' on the server to back up. So, the more we used it, the more we came to rely on it, the less safe it was.

Our school uses 'thin clients'; basically terminals that have the processing done on the thin client server. The only way to save anything is on the common drive. And, you guessed it, that was the drive that disappeared.

Teacher's whole worlds were stored, and lost. Lessons, tests, finals, PowerPoint's, video and audio for classes, prep for state testing, letters of recommendations- and so much more. Gone. We did what was asked of us, trusted the technology department, and we are now lost.

Student work also disappeared- college essays, portfolios of work for the year or all four years, etc. Gone.

Admin is also lost. I could go on, but I get a little panicky when I think about it. And more than a little angry. I'm really trying to keep this from being a rant about what goes wrong. Sometimes that's more of a challenge- today we'll see how I do.

There seems to be very little value placed on teacher product. Or, to be fair, our Technology Department appears to be out of touch with the importance of teacher work. Those files, gathered through the years, are our tools. We can't do our best work without these files- these tools. Taking away the hammer from the carpenter (or the scalpel from the surgeon) and expecting them to be as effective would be ridiculous.

The network, and the data ARE the curriculum these days. Teaching our students in this contemporary world requires these tools- stable and available. Yet, our technology department appears to feel that, while their data (which IS backed up) is important, our (and the students) is not important, and therefore can be lost.

There are industry standards for data security and recovery; our district didn't follow them. Now, the work is lost; hours are lost. No one, as yet, has stepped up to take responsibility for the loss. Or to propose compensation.

This has brought to light a fundamental misunderstanding about what teachers do, why it might be important, and why it might be valuable.

I really do hope the data is recovered- the drive has been at a data recovery specialist for going on a week now. A new drive is on its way to school- to be installed at some point.

Lost forever, I'm afraid, is the trust for the technology department. Lost also is a little more respect for the district- if this is how much they respect the teachers, if this is how they safeguard our hard work, if this is the plan for ensuring a functioning work environment... Disappointing.

Thanks for reading- I'll keep you updated. Sigh.