HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — It's back to basics for Henry County Schools after school district officials said a cyber attack caused a district-wide internet outage last Thursday. Instead of smart screens, teachers are relying on old-school projectors and workbooks. Students are using pencils and paper to do assignments.
“Suspicious activity was detected on our network last week, and we activated our protocol, which included immediate engagement with our partners, including Homeland Security, the FBI, Emergency Management agencies and our cyber security partners to collectively work around the clock to investigate," Dr. Mary Elizabeth Davis, superintendent of Henry County Schools, said in an announcement Thursday. “We took the responsible step to restrict access to our HCS network causing disruptive internet services across the entire district.”
The school district said certain operations, such as paying bills, cutting checks and preparing payroll would remain functioning. However, there is no estimated date of full restoration of operations. Davis said the district was still trying to determine the source and scope of the suspicious activity. The internet outage impacts about 44,000 students across 52 schools.
Lakeisha Gantt has two children in Henry County Schools. She's hopeful the district is working to resolve the issue, but she did not deny the challenges that come with adjusting to modern life without the internet in school.
"Yesterday, she came home with paper, and I haven’t seen her with paper in years," Gantt said. "We always need that Plan B. I think COVID was our first warning of trying to slow us down a little bit. Then the cyber attacks, you can see it on a daily basis. It’s a wakeup call that we should always have a Plan B, that we can’t rely on technology all the time.”
Sonya Ayannuga, principal at Rocky Creek Elementary School, said the district put vital information on jump drives and made sure hot spots were available for the front office. Staff had the ability to balance its use of print and digital work, so Ayannuga said there was not a drop off in learning as they had the ability to pivot once the outage happened. She added there had been more collaborative planning days since the outage, meaning more meetings in person and being clear about educators' expectations.
“It’s an inconvenience, definitely," Ayannuga said. "You don’t realize how much you rely on internet until you don’t have it, but we already had hard copies of our student information. We had a plan for car rider dismissal that was electronically done through the internet. We’re using intercoms a lot more."
Ayannuga said security measures, including camera systems, still work, and interior and exterior doors remain locked.
“It’s almost like the reverse of COVID," Ayannuga said. "With COVID, we had to learn how to do everything through the internet. Now with this situation, we’re learning how to pull back. Computers, internet - that doesn’t teach kids. Grade quality teachers teach students.”
A few years ago, Henry County Government experienced cyber issues, rendering email, internet access and county servers useless. Right now, there is no word on when the school district's Wi-Fi capabilities will be restored.