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Bug Means High School Students' Schedule Errors May Last Days

Posted by timothy on from the ok-computer-meeting-people-is-easy dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that thousands of high school students in Prince George's County missed a third day of classes Wednesday, and school officials said it could take more than a week to sort out the chaos caused by a computerized class-scheduling system as students were placed in gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias, libraries and classes they didn't want or need at high schools across the county and their parents' fury over the logistical nightmare rose. 'The school year comes up the same time every year,' said Carolyn Oliver, the mother of a 16-year-old senior who spent Wednesday in the senior lounge at Bowie High School. 'When I heard they didn't have schedules, I was like, "What have they been doing all summer?"' When school opened Monday, about 8,000 high school students had no class schedules and were sent to wait in holding spaces while administrators tried to sort things out." (More below.)

17 of 443 comments (clear)

  1. Schedules are important. by tacarat · · Score: 5, Funny

    One must know which classes to ditch.

    --
    "Common sense will be the death of us all"
    1. Re:Schedules are important. by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Funny

      I guess reading the summary is hard

      It's not his fault. The government also screwed up his schedule so he couldn't take reading 101.

    2. Re:Schedules are important. by lgw · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, no, no. On the internet you must say "your a moron". It's like a natural law or something. Get with the program!

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Class scheduling is hard work, yo! by RingDev · · Score: 3, Funny

    I remember talking to the admin at one of the colleges I attended. We asked them how they did their scheduling. The rumor was that the Dean would lock himself in a hotel room with a map of the school, the student list, the course catalog, and the teacher list, and 3 bottles of whiskey for a long weekend.

    After which, he would take a weeks vacation while everyone marveled over the new schedules.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    1. Re:Class scheduling is hard work, yo! by xaxa · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think my university computing department had (has?) a Prolog script to do the scheduling, but I don't know if it was seriously used or not.

      I assume you gave it some inputs (room sizes, class sizes, lectures required, etc) and then spent a week trying to work out why it wasn't giving the right result. But maybe that's just my Prolog :-D

    2. Re:Class scheduling is hard work, yo! by mrsquid0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      >If I recall correctly, the scheduling problem (or at least some
      >variants of it) is NP-complete.

      Phew. That means that there is no hope of it accidentally summoning Yog Sothoth.

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
  3. I know who's to blame... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Damn you, COBOL!!!!

  4. Re:Can't do it by hand by v1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    but it's so much more exciting to give them $4mil and pray it works the day it goes live, untested.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  5. Solution by ProteusQ · · Score: 3, Funny

    Send the programmers and administrators to detention!!

  6. Holding spaces? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    When school opened Monday, about 8,000 high school students had no class schedules and were sent to wait in holding spaces while administrators tried to sort things out."

    Mooooooo...

  7. Re:School doesn't work like you think. by PerZon · · Score: 2, Funny

    So what your saying is if the job is too hard, don't worry about it till the last minute? To me its just another poor example left by the peers of our future. Next they will all go on strike for poor working conditions...

  8. Re:This is high school? by nomadic · · Score: 5, Funny

    What kind of high school is THIS? We were lucky to have basic computer classes when i was in high school. Sewing and piano? Spoiled bastards.

    My high school had sewing and piano, those classes were held on Thursdays (aka "foie gras and caviar day" at the cafeteria, between yachting class and equestrianism.

    Ha, actually I am a proud product of the New York City public school system, where we counted ourselves lucky if the history books were published late enough to let us know when WW2 ended.

  9. Re:What have they been doing all summer by sexconker · · Score: 5, Funny

    RON PAUL is always relevant.

  10. Re:Happened in Dallas ISD too by flynt · · Score: 3, Funny

    This reminds me of where I went to high school. They sent you through a metal detector, and if you didn't have a gun, they gave you one.

  11. Re:Send the kids home? by maxume · · Score: 3, Funny

    Touché. And you are only in 78 minutes after someone posted how to get Slashdot to render it.

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  12. Re:Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    He's posting on /. What do you think?

  13. Re:Send the kids home? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    >and principle a few times and *principal* a few times Hey - it's a school thread, it's OK to be a grammar Nazi