Technical outage causes issues on first day of classes for Newton County students

The Newton County School System is working to fix technical problems connected to its internet service as students began to log in for the first day of school.

The school system posted on Facebook that it was experiencing issues after AT&T had a circuit go out around 3 Tuesday morning.

Due to the outage, officials say the school system has had issues with its phone lines and computer programs including Canvas, which the school uses for its digital learning. 

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"We know your students are excited to start the 2020-2021 school year and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused," Newton County school officials said on Facebook. "We thank you for your patience and as always, for your continued support of Newton County Schools."

Officials are hoping the computer system will be fully operational within the day.

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Any students who can't log in will not be counted absent.

Newton County wasn't the only metro Atlanta school system that had technical problems as is started the school year. In August, Gwinnett County experienced issues as the number of students logging in increased - which caused some students to be able to get into their virtual classes while others could not.

 A global Zoom outage also disrupted the first day of virtual learning for Atlanta Public School students.

In Cobb County, dozens of parents called the FOX 5 newsroom saying they could not log on for the first day of virtual learning.

While the problems were frustrating, most technology issues were resolved within a few days.

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