Avoidable Chaos

The damage this school district did in a day will take years to recover from if they ever can. This is an opened Pandora's box - demonstrably throwing in the towel when they could not manage what came at them from the students. There is no way to undo the event or pretend like the adults are still in control here. If anything this is an invitation to kids to get more out of hand, indulge in more unruly behavior, see how far they can push the boundaries and how they can expose the stupidity of the adults who are responsible for their education. 

We have all been teens once - surely none of this should come as a surprise to an adult of sane mind. This is the Lord of the Flies replayed online in over-drive mode. Things will not magically improve once everyone returns to school because that day is far away and this situation can well turn out to be a death by thousand cuts. 

As always such disasters of technology deployment, begs the question why no one thought to test this thing extensively before rolling it to production. Anyone who is familiar with Blackboard knows that their system is a real tragedy even on the best day. Why would anyone believe that it could work in crisis. To that end, wouldn't it be rational to test this deployment to death to make sure such a snafu does not occur. Did the geniuses in the school board not see this coming you have to wonder.