"Abandon all hope, ye who click 'Next.'" — Renata B.
BARROWFIELD UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — Sophomore English teacher Ms. Bianchi, who has taught Dante's Inferno for 12 years, completed the ninth of the district's required training modules on Sept. 10 and learned that a tenth had been added for the 2026-27 school year. The district's new training platform, rolled out in August, does not allow modules to be fast-forwarded and locks the volume at 100 percent.
District human resources director Mr. Faulkner said the platform was chosen for its lack of a fast-forward button after an audit found 96 percent of staff had completed last year's 90-minute "Active Listening" module in under 4 minutes. The volume was locked after the same audit found that most had done so with the sound off, which Mr. Faulkner said "is not listening, active or otherwise."
The tenth module, "Hearing Conservation in the Workplace," runs 2 hours and 40 minutes and must be completed while wearing headphones, which the district distributed last week.