Schools鈥� heavy reliance on the services of major technology companies comes with significant risks. Those risks became a reality this week when an outage at Amazon Web Services led to widespread internet disruptions.
Many 糖心动漫vlog across the country had to scramble to teach lessons and administer tests offline on Monday after
Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is a cloud computing service run by Amazon. It reported issues early in the morning on Oct. 20 in one of its data centers. AWS said it fixed the problem by 6 a.m. Eastern Time, but ripple effects caused disruptions all day, with most services not returning to normal until well after the school day ended.
Dozens of ed-tech products used by schools that rely on AWS鈥攊ncluding learning management systems, security programs, and online assessment tools鈥攚ere unusable during the school day on Oct. 20, according to school and district leaders.
鈥淚t鈥檚 frustrating,鈥� said Adam Lancto, the principal of Grandville High School in Grandville, Mich. 鈥淭echnology is great when it works. When it doesn鈥檛, it鈥檚 tough for teachers to be upfront in the classrooms, trying to navigate those tech issues.鈥�
AWS did not immediately respond to Education Week鈥檚 request for comment. But the reported that Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to its domain name system that converts web addresses into IP addresses, which are numeric designations that identify locations on the internet. Those addresses allow websites and apps to load on internet-connected devices.
Schools are in an era when just about all of their operations are connected to online networks. Districts accessed an average of 2,982 ed-tech tools during the 2024-25 school year, according to .
In July of 2024, a faulty software update from global cybersecurity company CrowdStrike halted operations of all kinds of organizations. It happened during the summer, so it didn鈥檛 jeopardize school operations nearly as much as if it had occurred when most schools were in session. But at the time, school district technology leaders cautioned that it was only a matter of time before something similar happened during the school year.
So many things were impacted by this [outage]. If it was just one thing, you can almost be OK with it, but it had district-level, building-level, and student-level impacts.
The disruption caused by the AWS outage, which happened during the school day, underscores the importance of balancing the reliance on digital technologies with proactive planning and practice for when digital systems are down, 糖心动漫vlog said.
鈥淚t was a reminder for all the staff that, whether it鈥檚 an outage or a cyberattack, there could be instances where they will not have access to their technology,鈥� said Eva Rodriguez, the chief information technology officer for the San Antonio school district in Texas. 鈥淭hey need to be able to pivot and still provide instruction and something for the kids to do.鈥�
How schools were affected by the AWS outage
The AWS outage affected almost every department in the school districts that use its services鈥攆rom learning management systems, student information databases, and human resource management technologies to security software and emergency alert platforms.
At Grandville High School, 9th through 11th grade students were preparing to take the digital PSAT on Oct. 21. They needed to make sure they were able to access their College Board accounts the day before, but the website was down. Students couldn鈥檛 check to see if they had accounts or if they knew their passwords.
鈥淚t was a helpless feeling,鈥� Lancto said. 鈥淲e had to call the College Board, and they were saying their servers are down, so we didn鈥檛 really know what to do.鈥�
He and his staff told students that if they couldn鈥檛 get into their accounts on test day, they might just have to call the College Board for help. If the website was still down on the scheduled test day, Lancto said the plan was to reschedule it to another day. That would not have been ideal because it would have taken up more learning time. (The PSAT testing went smoothly on Oct. 21, Lancto said.)
Other programs were also down across the Grandville school district, including its student information system Clever, web-filtering software Securly, and online assessment tool Formative, Lancto said.
鈥淭eachers came with a plan to have students do some sort of assessment and had to shift the plan or quickly get something on paper,鈥� he said.
Teachers and staff at Gompers Junior High in Joliet, Ill., were also scrambling to figure out workarounds to the technical difficulties, said Principal Raul Gaston Jr.
The main problem? ClassLink鈥攖he single-sign-on software that the Joliet district uses to allow students to log in to all their school apps with one set of credentials鈥攚as down due to the AWS outage. Students couldn鈥檛 get into any of the educational resources, Gaston Jr. said.
Teachers always have backup plans, though, so they turned to physical books, workbooks, and manipulatives to continue the learning, Gaston Jr. said.
But when teachers scramble to do something completely different from what they were planning to do, it can 鈥渃ome at a cost鈥� because the backup plan might not be as 鈥渢argeted or intensive鈥� as the lesson they were going to teach, he said.
Beyond the apps used for instruction, there were other programs that were down that were a bigger concern, Gaston Jr. said. For instance, Raptor, a school safety software that screens visitors, was down, so visitors couldn鈥檛 enter the building unless they had been to the school before.
鈥淪o many things were impacted by this [outage],鈥� Gaston Jr. said. 鈥淚f it was just one thing, you can almost be OK with it, but it had district-level, building-level, and student-level impacts.鈥�
How schools can prepare for the next big tech disruption
Service outages like the one that happened with AWS are rare, but when they do happen, they reveal just how dependent on digital technology schools have become, 糖心动漫vlog say.
鈥淲e rely so heavily on technology,鈥� said Rodriguez from the San Antonio district. 鈥淚t鈥檚 interwoven into everything that we do, not just instructionally but operationally.鈥�
There are bound to be instances when the technology doesn鈥檛 work, she said. Schools need to be prepared with continuity plans, and staff need to be trained on what that looks like.
However, finding time to train staff on what to do when the technology is down is challenging, said Chris Smallen, the chief technology officer for Lenoir City Schools in Tennessee.
鈥淲e have very little training time to begin with,鈥� Smallen said. 鈥淵ou kind of have to pick and choose your battles.鈥�
He added that because it鈥檚 rare to have outages like the one that happened with AWS, the district doesn鈥檛 spend a lot of time training for how to deal with them.
In San Antonio, Rodriguez and her IT staff have been training principals for what to do when the technology doesn鈥檛 work, whether it鈥檚 because of a cyberattack or an outage. They talk through what it looks like to operate a school with no technology, such as how to take attendance, how to do dismissal, and how to continue instruction.
At least one principal in the district has even started doing 鈥渦nplugged learning鈥� sessions, in which teachers and students don鈥檛 use technology during class, Rodriguez said.
Teachers in San Antonio are also required, as part of the district鈥檚 incident response plan, to have five days鈥� worth of paper-based lesson plans in case of an emergency or when systems go down, she said.
It鈥檚 important to have those conversations now, Rodriguez said, especially as schools become more reliant on technology.
鈥淲e try to minimize [outages],鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut they鈥檙e bound to happen again.鈥�
