Malibu Schools Off To Strong Start, Despite Zoom Glitch

MALIBU, CA — Malibu schools opened two days later than anticipated and endured a brief Zoom outage on the first day, but all things considered, things went pretty well.

“Overall, we had a very successful first day!” Malibu High School Principal Patrick Miller wrote Patch in an email. “We are very thankful for our parents and students who had read all of the information we had sent home, were prepared and ready to log in, and for the most part were ready to participate and connect.”

Miller said that teachers were asked to describe their first day in one word, and they replied with the following: “Successful, fine, exciting, surprising, tiring, frustrating, solid, fast paced, bumpy, challenging, alright, exhilarating, good, urgent, accomplished, smooth, hideous, unique, frazzling, invigorating.”

Some of the frazzle invariably came from a worldwide Zoom outage that occurred at 6 a.m. the first day. At 8:33, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District told parents and students they could access distance learning by clicking on a link provided by teachers, rather than logging on through Zoom.

Miller also said that the Zoom outage was restored before the start of the day, and that teachers are prepared to use Google Meets if Zoom is down. He said that they also have the ability to interact through Google Classroom if live interaction platforms are down.

“In our current model, the live interaction is one part of the equation, with meaningful work happening more fluidly and independently separate from the live sessions which allow for connection, interaction, and some delivery of new content or discussion,” he wrote.

Miller also said that though there were some issues were passwords, there were fewer than staff had anticipated.