Washington, January 3 The nation's urban public school systems opened their doors to a new millennium today without any major Y2K computer problems, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the country's big-city school districts.

  A survey conducted today by the Council of the Great City Schools indicated that preliminary results from 53 major urban public school systems showed that doors re-opened without significant technological problems.

   The smoothness of today's re-opening is significant because of the substantial number and type of computer-based systems operated by large urban school systems, including student information services, security systems, energy management, transportation, food service and cafeteria operations, elevators, utilities, air-conditioning and heating, wide-area networks, voice communications, payroll, alarm systems, and classroom computers. 

  Many urban school systems have been working to correct and test their computerized instructional, financial, personnel, and operating systems for as long as three years, and lent their expertise in early 1999 to the writing and publication of a manual for other school systems nationally on how to deal with the Y2K challenges, called Squashing the Millennium Bug: A Year 2000 Compliance Guide for Elementary/Secondary Schools and School Districts. The U.S. Department of Education circulated the report to every school system in the nation last year.

  "This is good news for the nation's urban schools, which not only worked hard to meet their Y2K challenges but helped other schools fix theirs," according to Council Executive Director Michael Casserly. "We believe our success occurred because of our high level of preparedness," said Stephen Daeschner, Superintendent of the Jefferson County (Louisville, KY) School District.

   Survey results were obtained from Atlanta, Baltimore City, Birmingham, Boston, Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale), Buffalo, Charlotte (NC), Chicago, Clark County (Las Vegas), Cleveland, Columbus (OH), Dallas, Dayton, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, El Paso, Fort Worth, Fresno, Houston, Indianapolis, Jefferson County (Louisville), Long Beach (CA), Los Angeles, Memphis, Mesa (AZ), Miami-Dade County (FL), Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York City, Newark, Norfolk, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Richmond, Rochester, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, St. Paul, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Toledo, Tucson and Washington, D.C.