Class is back at Springfield Public Schools, after a cyber incident forced school to be canceled last week. District officials say they’re confident in their backup systems, as authorities continue to investigate just what happened.
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Student drop-off at the Edward P. Boland Elementary School had just wrapped up as students lined up for gym class Monday morning. This, after an entire week of classes was wiped out due to a cyber attack last week.
Superintendent Sonia Dinnall said Monday’s return to class was relatively smooth, thanks in large part to teachers and staff who came prepared – whether it was Friday’s professional
development day focusing on backup plans or SPS staff working over the weekend.
“On Sunday, staff members were in the building, setting up additional supports so that Monday morning – bright and early - everyone was able to access what they need to access in order for the school day to go off without a hitch,” she said during a press conference near the school’s entrance.
Dubbed the district’s “second first day of school,” Dinnall and other officials addressed the media again as SPS continues its post-breach recovery.
Details on the group responsible for the breach that caused SPS to lose access to core services have still not been released.
However, the superintendent emphasized that, given the work officials completed last week up until Sunday, SPS was safe to welcome back its some 23,500 students.
“Again, the students have never been physically unsafe - all of our buildings have been operating. We have not been able to gain access to the buildings without using our identification badges - all the buildings are physically secure,” she said, seemingly answering some concerns raised by a teachers union late last week. “We never lost connection with the fire department, we never lost connection with the police department. All of those systems are up and running efficiently and effectively.”
As of Friday, district phone lines were finally working, with backup internet systems in place in most schools.
As Assistant Superintendent Jose Escribano explained, there is still work to do – the district’s primary internet system is still down and there was various back-end work that still needed to happen.
How compromised student and staff data may have been is under investigation. The breach itself was the result of a “sophisticated” attack that started as minor disruptions almost two weeks ago before worsening.
Escribano says the investigation is ongoing and that, for now, the crux of last week’s issues was a matter of access.
“We have our forensic team looking into the whole matter, but I just wanted to clarify - at this point, it was around access to those platforms that are in the cloud,” he said. “I just want to make sure that the public understands that distinction – we’re not saying that any information was compromised at this time. We're still obviously investigating the scope of [the breach], but that's not the concern at this time - the concern was around access to those records and restoring access to our cloud cloud-based systems.”
As Mayor Domenic Sarno and others laid out last week, losing access to student health data was among the primary reasons for canceling class.
For now, though, students are back in class. Without getting into specific numbers, Boland Elementary Principal Lisa Bakowski says many classrooms reported 100% attendance on Monday in the school of 550 students.
“Boy, does it feel great to be back in school,” she said during Monday’s update. “You know, there were so many ‘I missed you’s’ this morning that I was overwhelmed… and it was just me saying it to them. But, [the students] came up to me [saying] I missed you so much, and it was just wonderful. It's great to have everyone back in the building. The energy is just infectious, and we're happy to be back.”
