NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio — A network outage forced North Ridgeville City Schools to cancel classes on Tuesday. The district said the disruption was affecting internet access, essential services and campus security.
It was supposed to be the first day back after a week off, but spring break was extended by one day for North Ridgeville students.
"At five in the morning, I got a phone call that woke me up. And then I saw the text message,” said Matthew Smith.
The North Ridgeville father got the early morning alert that school was out for his three oldest children. But it wasn’t a traditional snow day or wind chill alert like previous cancellations.
The district said school was canceled because of a network outage.
“This is a first,” said Smith.
NRCS confirmed that Tuesday was the first time the district had canceled classes because of network issues. The outage first occurred late last week following powerful storms.
"The fiber-optic line that feeds our district actually was damaged out in the community. It’s an issue not even on the school campus that we’re just dealing with,” explained NRCS assistant superintendent David Pritt.
Crews had worked through the weekend, Pritt explained, but repairs were not complete in time for students returning from spring break on Tuesday.
No internet access is a problem for learning that’s increasingly technology-dependent.
"They come home, they have their tablets, they do a lot of their homework on their tablets. I have to assume a lot of their curriculum is through that and through the systems,” said Smith.
Pritt estimated 90-95% of class work is electronic. He said traditional textbooks are a premium service for school districts that can get digital versions for hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper.
“It just doesn’t make financial sense to have those on the off chance that your network is down,” he said.
Aside from learning disruptions, Pritt said safety and security were the primary considerations for canceling school.
"For us, it’s really a safety issue,” he said. “We want to make sure that if our kids are here, that they’re as safe as they can possibly be.”
He explained that everything from the phone lines to security cameras to attendance systems requires network access.
"In the case of a lockdown, we can push a button on a normal day and lock all of our doors down. We don’t have that ability when our network is down,” he said. “Something as simple as making a phone call in or out of the building can’t be accomplished when we don’t have our network.”
Pritt said the district is actively working on a contingency plan for network disruptions. By July, all NRCS schools should be equipped with a backup network in case the primary connection fails.
Catherine Ross is the Lorain County reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @CatherineRossTV, on Facebook CatherineRossTV or email her at Catherine.Ross@wews.com.
