A ding is heard from the front of the class and a difficult moment is shared as you watch the teacher open your bathroom request, which you had sent five minutes prior. The assignment in front of you is unstarted, still loading and giving retry messages. 

Every day at MN, we face a myriad of different Wi-Fi problems, ranging from long loading times that make our new e-hallpass almost impossible to use, to lectures that are interrupted and drawn-out by the seemingly inadequate internet speeds. 

At this point in the school year, although Wi-Fi issues are quite disappointing and irritating, we should push through and let Millard’s district technology teams do whatever they can to take care of our growing Wi-Fi problem. 

Many students seek out Franco Fiorini, our school’s technology facilitator, for help with their struggling computers. Fiorini, despite his technical knowledge, can’t help students with what he can’t fix. 

“Wi-Fi issues are a big deal, but it’s not just [MN], “ Fiorini said. “It’s district-wide.”

Although he is our school’s go-to for all-things tech, Fiorini has little control over its struggling Wi-Fi network. Even though we are having frustrating problems, it appears that Millard’s technical teams are doing their best for us. 

“[The Wi-Fi] is getting better,” Fiorini said. “Last year, we replaced all the access points, but we are still having issues.”

We may be asking the same question at this point; what can we do to keep ourselves as functional and as ready for school as possible while we wait for these issues to be resolved?

“It’s hard to say because this is a district-wide [problem]. It seems a lot [worse] in this building due to how many students and staff we have,” Fiorini said. “We have a good percentage of students that never bother to restart their computers, and the district is constantly pushing out updates.”

Instead of constantly putting off these extremely useful updates, we should try to update our laptops in a timely fashion to support our tech team and keep their focus on what is important as of now. 

“By the time students do decide to [restart their computers], they have many pending updates,” Fiorini said. “We try to spread the word, but it doesn’t work the way we want.”

At the tech office, many of the biggest problems reported can be solved by a simple restart of a student’s computer. 

“We have students that stop by the tech office, and they can’t connect to the Wi-Fi or their apps won’t load properly,” Fiorini said. “All we do is restart their computer and then boom, it starts working.” 

Although restarting can be a hassle, especially with a buildup of updates, it is a very effective way for us to ensure our laptops are as fast and as easy-to-use as possible.

In fact, these restarts and updates pushed out by the district are the primary way to keep our laptops in-the-loop. This also makes Fiorini’s office much less crowded and more available for more difficult circumstances.

“[When] those Wi-Fi issues go away, my life will be much easier than what I am going through right now,” Fiorini said.

While we wait for our internet situation to get in good shape, we should do both Fiorini and ourselves a massive favor, and push “Confirm” on the next update sent our way.