The server has 12GB RAM but can be easily upgraded to 32GB if it needs more. It has a 1TB SSD with about 300GB free.
I changed the following as suggested. They had been set at 8GB for size and 1 instance.
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 2G ### How much innodb data to store in memory. Higher = faster performance
innodb_buffer_pool_instances = 2 #### added tkamps 8/14/2017 per tuner script
School has not started yet, so usage is very light currently.
Thanks,
Tim