Schools in Springfield, Massachusetts, will remain closed through the week, as city, state and federal officials continue an investigation into a district wide cyber attack that began just before Labor Day.
Elementary school families have been figuring out what young children will do, especially if parents and guardians work outside of the house. Everyone has been kept up to date, more or less, with general texts from school leaders, some official school posts on social media — and more so a running stream of online comments.
The questions are many — what should parents know more about? What about people who "matriculated through the district?," someone asked.
The tone of some posts are frantic, others just wanting to know about the number of days missed and will that add days to the end of the school year.
Then there's the data breach itself.
Parent Ashley Johnson is worried whether any of her family's private information was accessed.
"We don't know yet what, if anything, may have been taken," said Johnson who has has two children in Springfield elementary schools told NEPM.
Schools have a lot of personal information she said.
"I'm hoping the district will let families know as soon as they determine whether any personal information was compromised and what steps parents should take — if any, Johnson said."
One parent online said she is taking precautionary measures now rather than wait.
"... including freezing both my credit and my daughter’s with all three credit bureaus. I would encourage other families to consider protecting their information as well while the district continues its investigation," the poster wote.
Late afternoon Wednesday, school families received a text from the district letting them know schools would reopen on Monday.
"My kids [are] definitely curious about why school was closed," Johnson said.
Johnson told her children about the cyber security issue in simple terms, she said, that school was closed because people needed time to make sure everything was safe.
"They didn't need all of the technical details, but they understood that this wasn't just a normal day off from school," Johnson said.
Overall she thinks the district made the right decision by closing schools while they deal with the incident, if they even had a choice, Johnson said.
"I've seen people say that 'we went to school before computers and children can still learn with books, paper and pencils.' That's true, but I think it misses the bigger issue, she said, that schools rely on networked systems for much more than classroom assignments," she said.
One comment on the thread went into unconfirmed details.
"With everyone commenting saying 'oh now kids can do it the old school way ...' this isn't about them not being able to learn this is the fact that someone has their personal information, their IEPs, medical information, phone numbers, addresses ... The nurses/faculty can't get access into anything so God forbid something happens to your child ... ," the person wrote.
The comments are a mixed bag of concern, advice and random negativity.
One defends the school district's efforts during the cyber incident saying, only people in the tech world could understand how big a problem this hack presents.
And at least one person asked, "Where’s the transparency!?"
