Classes are canceled at least through the end of this week.
1/13/2022
Albuquerque Public Schools canceled classes Thursday and Friday due to a cyber attack targeting its attendance and emergency-contact information system. Administrators warned that without access to the system, teaching, learning and student safety are at risk.
“Teachers have to take attendance every day and if a student doesn’t show up, the parent or guardian needs to be notified,” APS spokesperson Monica Armenta told KRQE News. “If a student was out and fell and broke a leg, we would have to know who’s authorized to be called to come and pick that student up.”
Classes were initially scheduled to resume on Friday. However, the school system announced Thursday afternoon that classes would be canceled for the rest of the week because it has been unable to resolve the issue. The district is currently working with law enforcement and a cybersecurity specialist, KRQE reported. The missed days will be made up at the end of the year.
This is the second major public school interruption due to a cybersecurity incident this week. The online education platform IO Classroom, which stores New York Public School students’ transcripts, contact information and special-education services, has also been out for at least five days.
Scott Virkler, chief operating officer at the IO Classroom’s parent company Illuminate, confirmed that the outage also began with a security incident. IO Classroom’s service history log shows that service was still out as of Thursday morning.
Protocol Link: https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/albuquerque-cancels-classes
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