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Email system crash forces PUSD to go analog
New emails up and running after breakdown last week

by Glenn Wohltmann

The Pleasanton school district's email system was down for nearly a week, between Oct. 16 and 22, but the district has moved to the clouds to get a new system up and running.

Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi said every employee now has a new address to replace emails from the district's in-house email system. That system, provided by First Class, shut down unexpectedly when a disk array failed, according to Luz Cazares, assistant superintendent of business services. Disk arrays are storage systems that link multiple hard drives into one large drive for data control and security.

Over the last week, the Pleasanton district has been doing business the way it did for much of the 20th century, with phone calls and the occasional facsimile.

"We did an auto-dialer last week to all of our households" to let parents know about the system failure, Ahmadi said. She said another auto-dialer will go out when everything is up and running again.

The district's website did not shut down and staff was able to access the Internet through other means, such as personal email addresses, despite the problems with the in-house email system.

Ahmadi said the failure of the disk array forced the district to do something it was planning anyway, but with more planning and a two- to three-month timeframe.

"We were going to move to gmail anyway," Ahmadi said. "At this point, we're in the process of getting all our employees a gmail address."

Instead of having physical servers, the district will use cloud technology, with information stored and accessed through Google servers.

"Our teachers here have been asking to use Google, Google Docs and Google apps," she said.

While it wasn't in the time frame the district hoped for, Ahmadi said information technicians and specialists think the change will be a good one for the district.

Changing to gmail couldn't happen overnight, Cazares said.

"It's a process, to get a new email in place for all our employees," she said.

The district has about 1,200 staff members who each have their own work email address, Ahmadi said. She said district employees are getting briefings on how to use the new system. Many used their personal emails to communicate when the school email system shut down.

At the school board meeting Tuesday night, California School Employees Association representative Calene Fenolio said some employees weren't expected to get their passwords or briefings until next week.

Under the new email system, prefixes will remain the same, using the first initial and last name of the employee. Ahmadi's new email, for example, will be pahmadi@pleasantonusd.net.

District spokeswoman Nicole Stewart said data recovery experts are working to restore the information that may have been lost in the hardware failure. Cazares said the district would probably not know what data or whether it could be retrieved until late in the week.

She said the district is working to get old emails forwarded to Google, and that old email addresses should work again once the problem is fixed.

"What we're hoping is, once we firm up our gmail accounts, we'll be able to flow through," Cazares said.

Meanwhile, teachers and staff have been communicating face to face and over the telephone in kind of a reverse learning curve.

"I felt like I was paralyzed," Ahmadi said. "So much of what we do is technology based. It's been hard to adjust."

Posted by The dog ate my email, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Oct 26, 2012 at 2:21 am

A Technology Plan Web Link makes absolutely no mention of migrating to Gmail or Google Mail and is available on the PUSD website at this location Web Link At least Dr. Casey had a Technology Plan that showed the future direction of District technology.

It sounds like again Ahmadi (quoted as "I felt like I was paralyzed") has had no Updated Technology Plan created, has had no School Board buy in of any Updated Technology Plan, or anything of the sort. Otherwise, there would be a new updated Technology Plan on their website. Instead, there is one that John Casey completed with his staff.

Sounds like Ahmadi is completely winging it (quoted as "our teachers ask for Google etc"), has no idea how to evaluate technology and has no ability to execute regularly updated backups of key District IT resources. Most companies and government agencies could restore email from a backup within a few minutes and get it up and running again.

What is next? Migration to Hotmail? Oh boy. Total loss of their Financial System?

Posted by Dear Dog, a member of the Amador Valley High School community, on Oct 27, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Dear Dog, You are so clueless it's amusing to read your post. Before you start ranting some more you might want to check your facts.

Posted by The dog ate my email, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Oct 27, 2012 at 8:19 pm

If you believe Ahmadi actually has an updated Technology Plan, show us all the web url for the new and updated Technology PlWeb Link. It isn't here, Dear Dog. The one that is there was posted

May 24, 2006 at 8:25 AM. See for yourself Web Link Perhaps Dear Dog can show up the appears to be non-existent Technology Plan, one that has a date/time stamp in the last two and a half years since Ahmadi was hired.

Or did the Dog That Ate The Email also eat the program that allows them to create and put a Technology Plan on the PUSD website?

BTW Dear Dog, the "paralyzed" quote does inspire confidence, yes?