More than 20 schools in Philly's Mastery Charter School network facing IT disruption: officials

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- An investigation is underway into an IT outage impacting Philadelphia's largest charter schools network.

Mastery Charter School's entire network, including more than 20 schools, is said to be impacted.

Mastery Charter Schools says the disruption knocked out phone lines and limited email access, but has not given a reason for the disruption.

According to alerts sent to parents on Monday, Mastery Schools experienced a "system disruption" to its IT infrastructure.

Despite this, a spokesperson says schools are expected to remain open for the rest of the week.

In the release to parents, Mastery stated the issue did not impact classroom instruction. However, students and parents disagreed, especially since much of the instruction is online and Chromebooks are used.

Mastery Charter officials released a statement saying in part: "Parents and guardians have been given alternative means to contact schools via direct cell phone lines. Mastery is working with experts to address the issue and get the schools back online as quickly and securely as possible."