With hopes of a fresh start to the school year, students were more than disappointed to hear that there was a corona virus outbreak among the student body. Gossip spread throughout the town, students, parents, and teachers. There was a foggy window between what was factual and the reality of what was actually happening in the school buildings. Dr. Neigel had to be on board with the local health board’s decision to keep all student’s home,and he had said “ [It] was a decision made by the local board of health. At the time of the decision, the number of positive cases was increasing, so it was not clear how large the outbreak would be. That being said, I believe it was the right decision.”
The students who spread corona virus were apart of the senior class, they hadn’t known they had the virus, which is what makes it so dangerous. Their names were being disrespected on social media, Parents weren’t so light hearted about this matter and somehow along the way managed to forget that they are children. Parents were posting how crazy some parents are to let their children go out on the Bernardsville bubble. One mom even went on to say how selfish and inconsiderate the other parents were to allow their children to go out rather than quarantine at home, it took about a week for everyone to calm down. Although,word on the Covid outbreak had gone silent, there was hot news of ransomware in our school.
Teachers who originally started teaching virtually from their classrooms were instructed to work from their homes as well due to fear of the hacker gaining access to all of the teachers files. Students were unable to access Powerschool because Bernards administrators shut down many servers including powerschool to prevent private information being stolen. Students weren’t the only ones thrown for a loop, as teachers were unable to access PowerTeacher for attendance at such a hard time in education. Bernards High School hadn’t been prepared as it has never experienced such chaotic measures before. Dr. Neigel was able to speak on this and say that they didn’t originally want to voice anything about the ransomware to avoid panic. They knew that they needed to handle this matter in a calm, collective way. After matters had finished they had to adapt a new PowerSchool link. The new technology team at Bernards High school was quick to say that they have better security systems for our school, and the ransomware that occurred was out of they ordinary. I spoke to Dr. Neigel, I wanted to know if he had any ideas as to who could’ve been responsible for said actions. He was quick to say that he has no suspicions and is not aware of who is responsible for the ransomware attack.