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Ray Cortines
LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, in his latest weekly update on MiSiS, told district staff today that he has reached out to Microsoft, the U.S. and California Departments of Education and other agencies as part of his effort to fix the district’s new student data tracking system.
And while he assured that district officials are “feverishly working to rectify issues,” he warned, “We do not have a timeline as of yet when the entire system will be fully functional.”
Straightening out MiSiS has been Cortines’s top priority since he returned to the district last month in his third tour as superintendent. He has restructured the Information Technology Division, jettisoning a few of its leaders, and he may do more. The district’s Inspector General report on MiSiS is expected to be a finger-pointing autopsy of the system’s flawed implementation, almost certainly leading to more personnel changes.
For now, Cortines is being guided by issues raised in a report from Arnold Viramontes, a consultant the district brought in to analyze structural mistakes in the MiSiS rollout so far. Viramontes’s report was released yesterday, and Cortines told staffers that “some changes” recommended have already been made.
He said weekly reports from Viramontes will inform further actions to fix MiSiS problems.
In one bright note for people working on the system, Cortines said he was “committed to providing compensation for any time that is spent addressing this issue above and beyond the regular workday.”