QUESTION
How prepared is NYC for online testing in schools?
1:19:30
·
98 sec
NYC schools are preparing for online testing, including SATs, PSATs, and state tests for 3rd and 8th graders, by ensuring adequate bandwidth and device distribution.
- Deputy Chief Information Officer Scott Strickland confirms preparedness for online testing, emphasizing collaboration with Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehra.
- The focus is on high stakes exams and ensuring schools, especially lease sites with network upgrade challenges, have the necessary internet infrastructure.
- Previous issues with online testing and the importance of system reliability, especially after problems during snow days, are addressed.
- The state provides the testing software, with efforts made to ensure it is downloaded ahead of the test.
Rita C. Joseph
1:19:30
And a lot of the schools are now coming up with testing online.
1:19:34
Are you prepared for that?
Scott Strickland
1:19:35
Yes.
1:19:36
We've been working
Rita C. Joseph
1:19:36
Emma knows I'm gonna ask 2 decades in in in doing this business.
1:19:40
You know, I'm gonna ask.
Emma Vadehra
1:19:41
We've had 2 briefings on that in the past week.
Rita C. Joseph
1:19:43
There
Scott Strickland
1:19:43
we go.
1:19:44
Emma's been very active with us to making sure because that's, again, another high stakes point of service where students are going to be taking their SATs and PSATs in school for the first time and also the state testing for the 3rd graders and the 8th graders.
1:20:03
Joel can speak a little bit maybe about the work that we've done to see how students, other schools that will be offering those testing are set up for the in school bandwidth and the in school device distribution.
1:20:16
And we do have a small number of schools that are, what we call, lease sites, they're not deal we own buildings.
1:20:23
Which have been hard to get to do network upgrades.
1:20:26
In some cases, we want to make sure that there's enough bandwidth and Internet access points and the exact classrooms where these schools are gonna be offering that service where they won't have capacity problems?
Rita C. Joseph
1:20:38
Yeah.
1:20:38
Because I know on last year you had a issue with test So I wanna make sure because the pilot program launched to test kids online, so I wanna make sure that system is up and running.
1:20:47
We saw what happened with snow days.
1:20:48
I don't want kids coming in.
1:20:50
In that being able to take the test.
Scott Strickland
1:20:52
Fair enough.
1:20:53
And there's what we can do on our side, and then the software itself is run through it's, you know, provided by the state.
1:21:00
There is a download that can happen on some of our platforms, and we're making sure that that download is done ahead ahead of the test and when