The MVHS Music Department began experiencing a Wi-Fi outage in the band room on Monday, Feb. 26. Instrumental Music Director John Gilchrist received communication from Principal Ben Clausnitzer during the weekend that the room would be without Wi-Fi due to split fiber cables. Gilchrist affirms that facilities manager Lance Quezada “acted quickly” to address the situation, but the extent of the damage required professional support to fix. Therefore, as of Mar. 7, the outage is still ongoing.

Though the outage has not interrupted Gilchrist’s teaching, he explains that he continues to use his personal hotspot and take more work out of the classroom to manage his various responsibilities to the department.

“It’s a pretty fast-moving organization with the music department because it’s not just the classes that we have during the day,” Gilchrist said. “We have Winter Guard, Winter Percussion. There are tours and field trips and things like that. Sometimes I can’t just wait until I get home to respond to those kinds of things.”

Gilchrist adds that the outage is inconvenient for students, as the room often serves as a social hub on campus beyond just their musical classes.

“A lot of students hang out here and do their homework here. So, I imagine that it has repelled a lot of students who would normally be hanging out here, so that is definitely unfortunate,” Gilchrist said. “It seems like it’s interrupted the social flow of things.”

As the department continues to grapple with the Wi-Fi outage, Gilchrist is optimistic that future facility updates will see the issue resolved and allow the Music Department to return to the status quo as soon as possible. 

“We are due for a facilities renovation actually starting next year, so I’m hoping that, during that time, we can get any bad infrastructure updated up to code,” Gilchrist said. “So, hopefully, these issues don’t happen in the future.”