WLA Family Tech Resources

Helpful Links and Resources for WLA Families and Students

• How to keep up with your student’s schoolwork (Families)
• How to get tech help (Families & Students)
• Troubleshooting Tips to resolve your issues at home, including Support Phone numbers for major Internet Providers (Families & Students)
• Student Life – Updates for Families & Students on our main WLA website

How to keep up with your student’s schoolwork

• PowerSchool Parent Portal – WLA’s PowerSchool Parent Portal is where you can view your student’s attendance, class progress, and final grades.
• WLA Canvas Parent Sign-up Instructions – With a Canvas Parent Observer account you can track your students assignments and grades. If you have any trouble creating your account, email Mr. Deegan and the tech team at help@wlapcs.org.
• WLA DeansList Sign-up Instructions – With your DeansList account you can keep track of your student’s attendance, behavioral progress and more. You will need a code to sign up and create your account. You should have received your code already for the 20-21 school year, but if not, please email Mr. Deegan and the tech team at help@wlapcs.org
• Support Learning from home – this resource is an overview from the country’s largest Education Technology organization with ideas for how to best help your student with their learning from home experience.
• Check your SPAM filters on your email accounts – Make sure you set your email to receive messages from the school.
  • We now use multiple automated systems and you may receive emails from some of them. We set these up as best we can to not get captured by SPAM filters, but every email account is different.
  • The below domains should be allowed on your email account to receive school communications
    • @wlapcs.org (direct emails from WLA staff)
    • @instructure.com (emails from Canvas)
    • @deanslistsoftware.com (emails from DeansList including weekly Leadership Reports)
    • @wlapcs.on.spiceworks.com (Messages from our tech help desk and our registrar)

How to get Tech Help

• General Help Issues
  • Send an email to help@wlapcs.org. When you send a help desk ticket, please include your name and your student’s name. We can’t always tell who it is from just the email address. Thank you!
  • Submit a help request at our new Help Desk Portal
  • Schedule virtual live support with Mr. Deegan via Calendly
• DC Resources for accessing low cost Internet and other tech support during the pandemic
  • Connect.DC – Digital Inclusion Initiative – Review options the city is offering for Internet and computer services and fill out an interest form.
  • General information about low cost Internet and computers for students and families from the The Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic at University of the District of Columbia

Troubleshooting Tips

• The super secret technology fix for a bunch of different issues – reboot, reboot, reboot!!!
  • A number of temporary issues are resolved when you reboot your device and/or your router. There are lots of reasons why this often works, but the main one is that some updates are needed or not fully completed and a reboot usually resolves the problem.
• Contact your Internet Provider Support Line Directly
  • Comcast Xfinity Support Phone number – 800-266-2278
  • Verizon and FIOS Support Phone number – 888-910-4366
  • RCN Support Phone number – 877-726-2455
  • GetHuman.com – Check here for all other providers. This site has direct support phone numbers for hundreds of companies.
• Chromebook is freezing or disconnecting – Close your tabs!!!
  • We have found that some students are having issues with their Chromebooks freezing or losing internet connection.
  • You may have too many tabs open. Try closing some and see if the problem gets better.
  • Each tab takes up some local memory on your Chromebook and eventually your Chromebook runs out and doesn’t work as well. It may look like it can’t connect to the Internet or the screen will stop loading.
  • You can also add the Great Suspender chrome extension to your Chromebook. This tool puts your unused tabs to sleep and keeps them from taking up too much memory.
• Student can’t login to Canvas from another computer or phone.
  • Our staff & students login to Canvas using Google single sign on.
  • First they must login to their WLA google account.
  • Then they open a new tab and browse to our staff & student Canvas page. It will automatically sign them in and load their classes.