West Ada School District Update
September 8, 2020
Connectivity Challenges on First Day of Remote Learning
Today West Ada School District experienced connectivity issues utilizing District-provided devices at home. As an added safety feature, District devices are directed back to the District’s main office in order to filter web traffic as if the students are at a school site.
These devices all went online today and attempted not only to provide school curriculum through Microsoft Teams, but complete software updates as well. These software updates caused lagging and connectivity issues while they were being downloaded and installed. The District’s technology department made several changes including stopping the updates, but it takes time for these things to resolve. If you can leave the devices on to complete any pending updates this evening it would be helpful. Please also reboot all devices before attempting to use tomorrow.
Due to the changes and updates completed today to improve the reliability of the District’s system, it is expected the situation will be better tomorrow. The District will publish updates regularly to let students, staff and parents know the status of our systems.
September 14 - Schools in Yellow, Alternate Day Schedule Begins
Find Your Team Designation: To find your child's team designation for use in the alternate day schedule, please log into PowerSchool. The designation is based on the primary contact's last name in an effort to keep children within one household in the same team. If you need to request a team change, please do so by filling out the form below.
Alternate Day Schedule: The alternate day schedule exists to limit the number of students in a building at one time by splitting the population in half. Your child will attend school according to this schedule, and on alternate days learn remotely.
Instructional Expectations: The needs of each individual classroom vary. Synchronous (live) instruction may take place on days when students are remote, but it is more likely that asynchronous (recorded) instruction will take place. The school district has limited devices and uploading bandwidth to accommodate live video instruction for all classrooms. It is still important that every child check in or log into their classes daily for attendance.
Preschool and Kindergarten: Students in preschool and kindergarten will not follow the alternate day schedule, instead they will attend school every day.
Tech Tips and Tutorial Videos
To make the 1:1 device transition easier for returning students this year, student passwords will remain the same as last spring. If your student is new or does not know their password, please call your student's school or the District Service Desk at 208-350-5300.
RapidIdentity Web Application Portal
Visit the new RapidIdentity web application portal to access your West Ada School District online applications. Using the portal, staff and students may access these resources from anywhere with any internet-connected device.
Students may log into the portal at https://apps.westada.org, using the same username and password used for logging into devices.
Learn more about RapidIdentity at https://www.westada.org/RapidIdentity-Student
Upcoming Events
September 14 - School is in Yellow category of operations - alternate day schedule begins
October 14 - No school for grades K-12; seniors take SAT and sophomores take PSAT