Montgomery County MD schools issue 10,000 errored report cards

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From WUSA-TV news -- Montgomery County, Maryland high schools issued over 10,000 report cards with incorrect grades and incorrect classes. (I can not yet verify this on any media page I have tried or on the Montgomery County Public Schools web site: http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/).

About Y2K -- many people said that Y2K problems might not appear until normal reports are run making corrupted data obvious. Perhaps this is an example?

I will post a follow-up when I find more information.

-- Ray Strackbein (Ray@Strackbein.com), February 17, 2000

Answers

Here is the follow-up from the Washington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-02/18/10 5l-021800-idx.html

Compiled from reports by staff writers Brigid Schulte, Hamil R. Harris, Annie Gowen, Spencer S. Hsu and Caryle Murphy and the Associated Press Friday, February 18, 2000; Page B03

MARYLAND

Montgomery System Fouls Up Grades

More than 10,000 Montgomery County secondary students received erroneous report cards this week, most of them containing confusing formatting mistakes. Nearly 2,000 report cards, however, had missing grades or credits, school officials said yesterday.

The errors are the latest problem with the new $4 million computerized Student Information System, which broke down last fall and caused thousands of high school students to wait in halls or cafeterias because the system could not register them for classes. The debacle led to the firing of Ronald Walsh, then head of school system technology.

"They're fixing it and keeping their fingers crossed that it won't happen again," said school system spokesman Brian J. Porter. "But it has undermined the credibility of the system. So people are gritting their teeth."

School officials have discussed taking legal action against the contractor, Marconi Systems Technologies Inc., and the software maker, Administrative Assistants LTD, a Canadian firm whose product has never been used in a system as big as Montgomery County's.

Corrected report cards will be issued by Tuesday on different-colored paper. Transcripts for seniors will be corrected and reprinted. Elementary schools were unaffected by the computer glitch, officials said.

-- Ray Strackbein (Ray@Strackbein.com), February 18, 2000.


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