This time around, the one thing school officials were certain of was it wasn’t a cyberattack, though today’s 12-hour network outage that lasted the whole school day prompted many teachers and students to think about the ransomware incident that occurred the week before Thanksgiving break two years ago.
“We don’t know the cause yet, so until [the district] really has good information — or any information — to tell us, we’re on standby,” assistant principal Sarah Murrietta said. “We didn’t get any information that would lead us to think that it is [a cyberattack].”
Though neither parents nor students received any emails from Fullerton Joint Union High School District [FJUHSD] officials about the network outage like last time in 2023, The Accolade obtained an explanation about the cause from a 1:43 p.m. email principal Craig Weinreich sent to teachers and staff.
“According to our fiber provider, there is a break in our fiber line between the district and the county office,” Weinreich wrote. “This is the cause of the internet outage. They do not have an ETA [estimated time of arrival] on when the internet should be restored, but I would plan for the internet to be out the remainder of the day.
“The expectation is that the internet will be restored by tomorrow morning.”
However, more than an hour after 3:30 p.m., the situation was resolved; Aeries, Google Classroom or any internet website could be accessed again.
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
Today’s internet breakdown follows a Monday, March 10, social media posting from X owner Elon Musk, who wrote that X was being targeted in a “massive cyberattack” as its service went down throughout the day.
Although Musk acknowledged that his cyber security team often deals with hackers, this week’s activity was something different.
“This was done with a lot of resources,” he wrote. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing …”
The word “outage” also reminded some on campus about the power loss that hit Sunny Hills last semester on Wednesday, Sept. 11. But that only lasted from the ending of third period to halfway through the lunch portion of the school day.
In both cases, the problems forced teachers to resort to more traditional methods to implement their lesson plans.
“I said, ‘OK, today’s progress check day, and students are going to want to work on their EdPuzzles and Achieve, but I’ll just have the students all get their files and extra focus on progress checks, which are done on paper,’” math teacher Kari Morita said. “The stars aligned, and it wasn’t too bad for me — at least we were given information beforehand this time, unlike last [time].”
Morita was referring to the 7:09 a.m. email that she and district employees had received from the FJUHSD’s director of technology, Weston Baughn.
“The internet is currently down districtwide,” Baughn wrote. “Technology Services is working on the problem and apologizes for any inconvenience.
“We will give you an update as soon as possible.”
That update came only to district employees in an 8:45 p.m. email from Baughn, who wrote, “The internet service has been restored,” but did not provide the cause as Weinreich’s email did.
DEALING WITH WASC VISITING TEAM
Unlike the other FJUHSD high school campuses, Sunny Hills was in its second day of hosting a visiting team tasked to observe and evaluate the campus as part of the school’s re-accreditation process with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges [WASC].
“I think the WASC visiting team is able to see our teachers and students really dive into instructions and discussions are taking place, so the engagement went up as we didn’t have internet,” Murrietta said. “We’re able to see more person-to-person, group discussions that are taking place in the classrooms.”
For social science teacher Greg Abbott, students said he handed out blank pieces of paper and asked students to take notes the traditional method instead of on their Chromebooks like in the past.
VIDEO CUTLINE: Social science teacher Greg Abbott passes out paper for his Advanced Placement U.S. History class students to take notes during fifth period in Room 54 on Tuesday, March 11. (Video taken by Issac Lee)
Because students in zero period Honors Pre-Calculus couldn’t access DeltaMath, an online portal to access digital assignments, to take their quizzes, they were provided with a paper exam.
During one of the after school meetings today with some teachers, staff, administrators and Irvine High School principal Jeffrey Hernandez and Schurr High School principal Larry Lawrence McKiernan, the issue of how well instructors made adjustments to the unexpected outage was addressed.
“They really recognized all the efforts both our teachers and we made to pivot our lessons and plans to offline material, and I felt happy that they understood and saw the bright side of things,” said junior Irene Park, a student member of the WASC committee.
Many teachers encouraged students to use their hotspots to access lesson material, such as Korean teacher Joe Ok, while others, like Abbott, chose to do a quick lecture in class using the whiteboard.
Some took advantage of the situation to prompt some class activities that didn’t involve any technology.
“I had a lot of fun in my English class today because we got to play a version of ‘Chopped’ in which we analyzed some poems and gave 1-2 minute presentations on them using our mini whiteboards and other random items,” Park said.
Aeries access was also difficult throughout the day, though Murrietta said it was up and running for those who wanted to use it with their hotspots. However, most students and teachers said the attendance and gradebook app was glitchy.
“We were sending text messages between teachers, so I knew when it worked for a while,” Morita said. “I took attendance and was able to update some scores on Aeries, but I did write it down — I’m not counting on it to be saved.”
However, students like senior Alan Park said not being able to access the platform caused inconveniences.
“It was frustrating how Aeries was lagging so much that I couldn’t check my physics test score that Mr. [Chris] Peoples inputted during fifth period today,” Park said. “I’m glad it works now.”
For those unable to take attendance on Aeries, Murrietta said they were encouraged to go back to traditional pen and paper as well.
“Teachers would take hard-copy attendance like how we used to do it without the internet before and how substitutes do, and when the internet is back up, they can update it on Aeries,” the assistant principal said. “[In the meantime], the staff is communicating through cell phones, the Remind app and school phones.”
MORE STUDENT REACTIONS
Unable to use online platforms like Formative, senior Ryan Nixon said a test in her Spanish 4 class got postponed for three days, and she was assigned paperwork throughout the day.
“We were excited that we had extra time to study since it’s a busy season with a lot of deadlines,” Nixon said.
After finding out about the outage during her first period Economics class, she said her classes didn’t experience much trouble other than having some changes in the lesson plans.
“I think as a senior, you’re just trying to get by, so whatever your teacher shifts to do, you’re going to adjust to it,” the senior said. “Also, I personally prefer paper and discussion, so it was nice having a lot of class discussions today in my Link Crew and AP [Advanced Placement] English Literature classes.”
Junior Noah Winter said he chose to be more resourceful during the outage, which is similar to what some of his teachers did as well.
“I’ve just been using a hotspot. … I don’t remember this being that different from last year’s internet outage; I just worked through it,” Winter said.
