A Muskogee mother says she and three of her children encountered an avalanche of platforms and passwords while doing Muskogee Public Schools virtual learning this week.

“All I want for them is to streamline the process so there is some uniformity,” said Tara Gilbert.

Gilbert has three children attending three Muskogee schools. Izzy, 10, attends Creek Elementary. Micah, 13, attends the 7th and 8th Grade Academy. Rai, 15, Muskogee High. Each are spending the week at home, doing virtual learning on their Chromebooks.

“With multiple children in multiple schools, we are dealing with anywhere from five to 15 different apps and websites that have got to be utilized in order to get through the school day,” Gilbert said. “It’s absolutely impossible to do it.”

Muskogee Public Schools Technology Instruction Director Justin Walker said the district is working with providers to streamline the process. He said the district primarily uses Schoology for its elementary learning management system and Google Classroom for grades nine through 12.

He said the online education portal Clever is the district’s Single Sign-On option or home base for all the programs. 

“When students log into their Chromebooks they are automatically signed into Clever as well,” he said. “Currently, most of our district adopted resources are accessed through Clever. We are also working on a parent log-in that will allow parents easy access to their students’ information. Clever also allows us to create clever badges for younger students to use to log into their Chromebooks. This keeps them from having to type in long passwords on a regular basis.” 

Izzy said she was not able to do any of her assignments this week. She listed different platforms she must go through, including Schoology, Studies Weekly, Study Island, PowerSchool, Renaissance Star, Imagine That.

“I go to my assignment, I click on the assignment, and I hit ‘go now,'” Izzy said, showing spaces calling for username and password. “I called my teacher about it yesterday and she said there is no username or password and I don’t need to put one in. But obviously I do, or I can’t get to it.”

Micah also listed several different sites he had to access.

Walker said the district is “working with Pearson Savvas Realize and Studies Weekly to have the programs housed inside Schoology.” 

“This will keep students from having to go to another site to complete work,” he said. “All other software the district uses is already accessible once you login to Clever.”

Gilbert said Rai’s high school schedule has changed three or four times.

MPS Marketing and Communications Director Steve Braun said MHS parents should contact their high school counselor and principal if they have questions.

Gilbert said she is a sales executive for a financial tech company, but now is on furlough. She said having to stay home for virtual learning days keeps her from being able to look for work.

“There’s no jobs that are going to say ‘according to your kids’ school schedule is when you work.’ Jobs don’t have that flexibility,” she said. “If this is the new normal, they should have one program for the elementary school, one program for the middle school and one program for the high school. Everybody needs to be using the programs that are uniform, that are simple to access.” 

Muskogee Public Schools uses Edmentum products for its E-Learning program, which is used by students who do not choose on-site school.