The Troubles of Talos

Since its implementation in spring 2018, Talos has been used to digitize and centralize different schoolwide programs for Stuyvesant’s programming office. Created by Stuyvesant alumnus Rodda John, it was originally instituted to help students select choices for Advanced Placement (AP) courses, but was then expanded to include elective selections as well. From there, Talos has grown to currently encompass not only course selections, but also course lists and descriptions, program changes, various form uploads, marking period and semester grades, and WiFi access for student devices. Though well-intentioned and—at least initially—off to a promising start, Talos has many flaws that render it impractical for use by the Stuyvesant student body.

Of course, Talos does have a multitude of benefits for the school administration. In a Spectator News article written by Jamie Zeng and Erin Lee in September of 2018, Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said, “[Talos] was really helpful in AP registration. It allowed me to add kids to AP courses, [...] see their selections, filter their choices, and add them without having to do it manually—without getting a printout and going to eSchoolData, looking at transcripts and grade point averages, and then writing down names and handing those names or e-mailing those names to the Program Office.” Talos removes the need for long lines outside the guidance suite or the offices of various departmental assistant principals, ostensibly creating a more streamlined and efficient course-selection process. It also allows administrators to apply a grade average limit to AP course selections, a rule that was hard to enforce under the previous system. Though Talos carries several important benefits for the administration, the negative effects it has on the student body cause Talos to be a nuisance rather than a useful tool.

The first issue with the program change system on Talos is the way you have to format your requests. When requesting a change, you first have to “drop” classes to make space for the course that you want in a specific time slot. Then, in order to move the class, you have to request the class that you dropped. This system is fine if you are making a simple change, such as switching two classes, but for more complicated changes, the system becomes extremely inefficient. A related issue when requesting program changes is the lack of information that one has about the classes they are switching around. At the time of program changes, the student does not know which teachers they have, or which teachers will teach the classes they are trying to switch. Though this does prevent students from attempting to switch out of certain teachers’ classes, a prevalent problem before Talos began to be used, it makes it very difficult for a student to know exactly what they are changing. They may really like a teacher from last semester, but accidentally switch out of that teacher’s classes due to the lack of information.

The second problem with Talos stems from the impersonal process of course selections it has created. A major source of stress for the student body comes from Talos’s digitized program change system. Before Talos was implemented, a student would have to go to one or more departmental assistant principals, as well as their guidance counselor, to request a specific change to their schedule or to ask for further information on a particular course. This personalized process was more dependent on the student, as it was their responsibility to get permission from the required administrators.

Now, through Talos, this approval by the AP and guidance counselor is done through the Program Changes section on the Talos website. Though this is meant to streamline the program change process, in reality, the lack of communication only causes more problems and stress. Talos removes the personal aspect of being able to communicate more closely with a guidance counselor during the program change process. Guidance counselors are often unavailable through e-mail during the process due to the sheer volume of program requests they must process, and it is very difficult to personally meet with a guidance counselor during the chaotic process of program changes. In addition to this, when requesting program changes online, the status of your change is vague, sometimes saying that the request is being processed for days on end. Without the personal connections that come with meeting with an assistant principal or a guidance counselor, it is much more difficult for students to navigate the process.

Talos’s numerous technical issues only add to the difficulty it creates. With a system that services 3600 students and countless administrators, there are bound to be some server issues and malfunctions. One would be justified in thinking that, after nearly two years of improving and adjusting Talos, the Program Office would be able to handle the expected influx of course selections and schedule change requests. But this term, not only did the course selections fail to be released when they were scheduled to, but the website also crashed or loaded extremely slowly for some users. Aside from the server issues, Talos’s built-in course directory, which is supposed to contain a comprehensive and accurate list of every class offered at Stuyvesant, contains numerous inaccuracies and unclear information. When it was launched, the “pre-approval” system caused mass confusion and took several days to function correctly, and the technical inaccuracies—some juniors saw AP European History (a 10th grade course) in their class list, and some freshmen were slated for chemistry (also a 10th grade course)—did not help with the chaos that Talos initiated.

The final issue with Talos is the newly instituted Argus system, which eliminates the need for students to connect to WiFi at the beginning of the day. Instead, Argus allows each student to register one device that will connect to the school WiFi. Though this may seem to be a good solution on paper, there is one problematic catch that affects a good chunk of the student body: only laptops or tablets are eligible for connectivity to the school WiFi. In a school where four percent of the student body is listed as economically disadvantaged, many students who cannot afford computers or tablets use their cell phones to do homework, send e-mails, and check assignments. It doesn’t help that Argus has faced technical issues of its own, often failing to connect a device to the Internet for days on end and simply not functioning for others.

Talos was clearly implemented with nothing but good intentions for Stuyvesant in mind. To be clear, the platform does hold real potential for the school administration; its ability to streamline what was previously a tedious and exhaustive process is valuable. But the real problem lies with the lack of improvement the student body has seen every time Talos has been employed. From technical bugs to overloaded servers, from missing course descriptions to flat-out inaccurate schedule listings, the perpetually troubled Talos doesn’t resemble the marvel of mythological engineering it was named after—not even close.