Dear SDMA Families and Staff,

As most of you are aware, the SDMA has been dealing with a network outage since last Thursday. Among other things, this outage has impacted district internet services, print services, and much of the phone system. Principals were provided with direct dial phone numbers last week to use in the event of an emergency, and several staff members have been using their personal cell phones and data services as needed.

My understanding is that the drives on the district’s virtual server (both the primary drive and backup drive) failed on early Thursday morning, so replacement hardware was immediately ordered and overnighted to the district on Friday. We expected the network to be up and running during each of the past few days, but the support vendor has had difficulty with the formatting and reconfiguration necessary to bring systems back online. People have been working day and night to have services available ASAP, and we are hopeful that at least part of the network will be up and running today.

Principals have been keeping staff members informed as much as possible, and we appreciate everyone's patience and understanding. With the first quarter ending this week and finals scheduled at MHS, the principals and staff will be determining if an adjustment to the instructional calendar is needed. Consideration will also be given for how this outage may be impacting students who might be out due to COVID-19 isolation and quarantine. Once systems are restored, a complete analysis of this problem will be conducted and adjustments to the capital replacement plan will be made as needed to ensure that this problem does not happen again. 

On behalf of the district, I apologize for this big inconvenience.

Joe Zydowsky