Disconnected

Wifi outage causes problems for Liberty staff and students

Max Fensterman, Online Editor

Students and teachers experienced a brief period of disruption at Liberty earlier in the month due to a wireless internet outage. That early October afternoon, the whole building lost wifi connectivity, leaving teachers unable to input grades and attendance, and students unable to work from their chromebooks.

“It was really unfortunate for us because every day we have to fill out forms for chromebook repairs that are all online,” said senior Scott Brockman, who is apart of the CSI chrome lab. The chrome lab is a student run program that teaches the participating students information technology skills, while also repairing broken chromebooks that students bring in.

“When the wifi goes out, we’re unable to make sure all of the paperwork is filled out correctly,” Brockman said. Although it is inconvenient, he said that all of the services that the chrome lab provides are still available during an internet outage.

As for the cause of the outage, the culprit was determined to be an overheated server room.

“We keep the server room at a very cold temperature. The air conditioner for the room broke and it caused the room to become too hot,” the Wentzville School District’s Director of Technology, Greg Lawrence, said.

Overheating can be detrimental to computer parts, however there is expected to be minimal lasting damage. The wifi was down for only a few hours, much less than what could’ve possibly happened.

“We have a location in the district where the server room is located, it is offsite, not at Liberty,” Lawrence said.

Because of this, specialists were able to get the server back up and running behind with no additional interruption to the school day.

As for the future, no additional policies have been formed to prevent another server meltdown, normal protocol stands to watch how the air conditioner is running and monitor the temperature periodically.