In an email sent to teachers, the Academic Council noted that Rockwood is currently in the process of transitioning to Gmail and hopes to have the project completed by the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

Will Blaylock, Chief Information Officer, said the delay was due to the inconvenience of requiring teachers to access two different e-mail systems.

“Time is a precious resource for teachers,” Blaylock said. “We felt it was important to streamline what they were required to check as much as possible.”

Once teachers receive access to their Gmail accounts, their current Rockwood email addresses will be replaced with their Google email address.

Blaylock said that although they were no technical issues precluding access to Gmail, cost was a factor.

Due to potential legal issues Rockwood requires e-mail services to have an archiving tool so that all emails sent or received over a 90 day period can be recoverable. Blaylock said that the cost for an archiving tool was quite expensive.

Recently, Google decided to make service available for free, prompting the conversion to Gmail.

Teachers’ lack of access to their Gmail accounts created some difficulties concerning  communication and collaboration between teachers and students.

“The main reason teachers have asked to have access to Gmail is to receive notifications from students who have shared documents or files with teachers,” Blaylock said.

Blaylock said that after the transition to Gmail this problem will be fixed.