Georgia district struggles to teach online; quarantines grow

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's largest school district struggled Wednesday to launch online learning for its 180,000 students, as parents complained that they and their students repeatedly tried and failed to log in to Gwinnett County's online system.

And the largest district in Georgia that's currently trying to offer face-to-face classes has now quarantined more than 1,110 students, a one-day increase of more than 300 children, because of possible coronavirus exposure since classes resumed last week in Cherokee County.

Gwinnett County is among the large metro Atlanta districts that have chosen to offer virtual classes to all of its students at the beginning of the year. Like many schools nationwide this year, Gwinnett wants to offer much more real-time learning, instead of the work-at-your-own pace options that were the most common in the spring.

But technology troubles could make that difficult. A system test Monday had already produced widespread difficulties, when many students couldn't sign in. District officials pledged improvement, but Wednesday brought the same complaints.

“While Gwinnett County Public Schools has more than 90,000 users online this morning, we know some users have reported difficulties logging into the portal and some applications,” the district wrote on its Facebook page. “Technology staff are working to resolve these issues. If a student experiences issues, they should wait a few minutes and attempt to log in again. Thank you for your patience.”

Individual schools also asked parents and students to keep trying, with some reporting sporadic access. Others, though, reported no problems

“My kids were able to get logged in, they were fortunate,” said Johnnie Dardar, whose 8th grade and 11th grade sons attend school in Dacula. He said they had struggled with the Monday test but...