Busting Out the Seams and Tech Hell

Back to school today after a week off for fall break.  As much as I was dreading today, because, let's face it, it's nice to sit home with my felines, and my hubby and knit and read and make jelly and work in my yard and all that fun stuff, today, well, it wasn't too bad. 

Except for Tech Hell, but we'll get to that in a bit.

What was weird, and surprising, is that we got an email today from Guidance informing us that they had enrolled 14 kids today.  FOURTEEN!  In one day.  Now, we're used to getting a boatload of kids after the Christmas holidays, but after fall break?  Nearly unheard off.  But fourteen enrolled today - and of course half of them were seventh graders - so now we're expecting 3-4 new kids for each team.  Yay!  

And all this, after The District, with all their number crunchers, predicted our enrollment going down (it's gone up by about 100) and we're rezoning next year and expecting another 100-200 kids from that.  So, will we be going back to three seventh grade teams?  The Principal told me she's almost certain we will, but it remains to be seen.  I'm not so sure these guys know how to forecast that well.

And for the Tech Hell.  (Isn't there always Tech Hell?).  We got an email over break from The Principal which was a forward from a Tech Genius, that basically said they had come in over break, did some work on the network, and while they were there, went into classrooms and fixed stuff (that we probably didn't know was broken) and that we'd have a tech guy here in the morning on Monday in case some printers didn't work, etc.

Which is weird because a few weeks ago a Tech Genius spent all day coming into each and every classroom (never during planning, ALWAYS when you didn't want them) changing all the IP addresses on our printers.

So, today, I'm all happy camper because my printer is working.  Until third period.  When it stops.  

So Mr. Math comes over (and he's even more annoyed than most of us because he's way smarter than the Tech Geniuses) and he fixes my IP address on my printer.  Yea!  Printer works.  

Until I come back from lunch and it's apparent that someone came in during lunch and restarted my computer.  So now my printer doesn't work. (I was lucky.  Only my computer was restarted - Mr. Math had all his equipment turned off which means 10 minutes of class time trying to get everything back up and running.)  Keep in mind, we have to turn in grade verifications at the end of the day so I kind of like need my printer to work.  

We get an email from one of the secretaries up front informing us that the Tech Genius told us that all our problems would be solved if we restarted our computers.  WRONG.  In inform her that my computer was working fine until SOMEONE restarted it and now it didn't work.  She said that they'd add my room to the list.  

Finally, Guidance Goober comes in and fixes it himself after I basically went over and asked them how on earth I was suppose to submit my grades if I couldn't even print them?

When did Tech Genius show up?  After bus riders were dismissed.  I told him thanks, but I had it taken care of.  He looked relieved.

So, my question still is...what was the point of all this?  I think the IP address on my printer has been changed five times in the past month and for what reason?  None that anyone can truly tell me.  My guess is that this is a way for the tech department to justify their continued existence even though, from what I've been told, they cause more problems than they solve.

Just ask the Guidance Department.  They were still there at 4:30 when I left today because they couldn't get the new schedules to print for tomorrow...what a mess.