On Monday morning, while at the Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts, school district Superintendent Sonia Dinnall said she and other administrators would be visiting every school in the district on this first day back after a cyber attack shut schools down last week.
"Teachers are teaching. Students are learning. Everyone really is happy to be back," Dinnall said. "Yes, we still have a few things to iron out, but I tell you, it has been nothing short of a miracle that all of this has been accomplished in such a short amount of time."
The district has spent the last week pushing back on rumors that schools would not be safe once reopened.
"The students have never been physically unsafe," Dinnall said and she thanked parents for getting their children to school on this first day back.
All phone lines are up and running, police and fire departments can be reached and school building doors are secure, Dinnall said. No one can get in a building without using their badge.
The district's IT department has been working around the clock to make sure those and other critical functions of a school building are in place, said Assistant Superintendent Jose Escribano.
And the work continues.
"So, we're not saying that any information was compromised at this time. We're still obviously investigating the scope of it, but that's not the concern at this time," Escribano said. "The concern [is] around access to those records and restoring access to our cloud-based systems."
An investigation so far has confirmed that the district's cyber incident "was the result of a sophisticated and experienced cybercriminal group," according to a district FAQ which says a cyber forensics firm and state, local and federal officials are involved in the ongoing investigation.
The group blocked the district’s access to technology services hosted on district servers, including transportation, food preparation and delivery, instruction, access to student medical records, and other operations were impacted.
The hack, Escribano said, impacted their ability to get into school systems stored in the cloud on third-party platforms. Those companies have their own security and protocols Escribano said.
"So, it's just more about our ability to get into those systems. We have to kind of rebuild that," he said.
As for personal computers, Escribano said educators were the first to be brought back on line. Then students who depends on technology for learning, including the district's virtual school students.
In classrooms, on the the first day back and for a few days to come, students are using more books than usual, writing on paper; overhead projectors are being used in some classrooms.
There's been plenty of raised eyebrows and criticism about going low-tech on social media, including from people who don't have children in schools.
But Boland Elementary School Principal Lisa Bakowski had nothing but praise for teachers' ability to keep educating students.
"Our teachers are amazing," she said. "They're resilient, they could teach in a field with no equipment."
Superintendent Dinnall commended the teacher union, saying they provided good ideas about how to handle the number of school days missed because of the cyber attack, without adding to the length of the school year.
Dinnall said the district will look closely at shortening the length of the December break, which in the 2025-26 school year is 10 days.
"Cancel the flight, y'all," Dinnall said. "We're going to be in school."
The district wants to recoup the lost days, not tack them on at the end of the school year Dinnall said.
"We don't know what Mother Nature has in store for us this winter," she said referring to potential closures because of snow.
Over the last week Mayor Domenic Sarno said a few times that "the money" stays with the students, but he wouldn't confirm if the district hack was ransomware.
Over the last few years, those have become an increasing concern for schools everywhere.
This is a developing story.
