Requested Action: Request the Superintendent to report back to the Board on the potential impact on the ICCSD of the Year 2000 computer problem, and the steps that have been taken to minimize its adverse effects on our students and the operation of our school system.

With increasing crescendo during the past five years, cries, not that "the sky is falling," but that "the computers will be failing" -- which ends up being pretty much the same thing -- have been heard around the world.  Every organization and institution has had to evaluate what will happen when their computers, programmed to deal with "years" as two-digit rather than four-digit numbers, suddenly roll over to "00."  The cost of the fix, for federal government computers alone, is in excess of $5 billion.

The ICCSD is no exception.

The problems are sufficiently vast that those who have not started work on them a couple of years ago are going to have a tough time solving them in the next 15 months.

I have spoken briefly with Jerry Palmer about this.  He has apparently already had some reassurance from some quarter that things are under control.

And I would agree that identifying, and fixing, any problems are primarily an administrative/management matter for the CAO rather than a "policy" question for the Board.  But the potential magnitude of the problem is such that I think formalizing this with a Board request for a report would be both worthwhile and a perfectly legitimate "oversight" role for the Board.

However, PCs will also be affected.  And it is not enough that the hardware (BIOS, CMOS, and networks) will work.  There is also the issue of every one of those favorite old software programs that we’re running.

Nor is this just a matter of what happens to our ability to pay our teachers and other vendors, and to get access to data on our hard drives.

Computer chips are everywhere.  If there is a glitch somewhere in the banking system, electric power grid, natural gas pumping stations, etc., etc., we will have a problem.  Those we are relatively powerless to do anything about, but we can take the precautionary step of at least asking our suppliers for, say, a letter setting forth why they are sure everything is OK. (There is already a specialty among lawyers, and law professors, on the potential liability that will be created by these problems.  The District is neither immune from potential liability nor free of the possible need to impose liability for its losses on others.)

If we have thermostats, or other chip-controlled timers or security systems, if we have new cars/trucks with chips in them, scientific apparatus in the schools, etc. (the check list is pretty much endless), we could have potential problems.

Some people are taking all their money out of the bank, stockpiling food, etc.  I am not of that camp.  Bottom line: nobody knows for sure if all the elevators will stall, planes fall out of the sky, and banking system collapse.  My guess is that things will be nowhere near as awful as the doomsayers predict.  But no one can know, at this point.

As the overseers of an important institution the Board needs to reassure itself that the CAO has done all that is reasonable and prudent to minimize any adverse effects.