Humble ISD updates HVAC system, addresses cyber attack on the first day of online learning due to coronavirus
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Ted McClain, who spoke in person, was wearing a hood mask similar to a hazmat suit piece as a recommendation to the board for teachers.
Ted McClain, who spoke in person, was wearing a hood mask similar to a hazmat suit piece as a recommendation to the board for teachers.
Photo: Screenshot By Savannah Mehrtens
Photo: Screenshot By Savannah Mehrtens
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Ted McClain, who spoke in person, was wearing a hood mask similar to a hazmat suit piece as a recommendation to the board for teachers.
Ted McClain, who spoke in person, was wearing a hood mask similar to a hazmat suit piece as a recommendation to the board for teachers.
Photo: Screenshot By Savannah Mehrtens
Humble ISD updates HVAC system, addresses cyber attack on the first day of online learning due to coronavirus
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Humble ISD, like most school districts across the country, are making adjustments to policies and budgets to provide a safe learning experience during the coronavirus pandemic.
The school board decided to make changes to its budget, address a cyber attack on its online learning platform and listened to safety concerns from teachers, parents and staff members during a school board meeting on Tuesday.
The district also began virtual learning on Aug. 11 — the same day as the first scheduled board meeting of the new semester.
New expenses
The board approved the purchase of items needed for educating during the coronavirus, including $200,000 for HVAC ultraviolet disinfectant emitters for A /C units and duct microbial control and $150,000 for COVID-19 testing that provides results in about 24-36 hours.
For outdoor learning instruction, the board unanimously approved a budget amendment detail to increase spending on tables, benches and fans.
Additionally, the board approved the submission of a waiver request to the Texas Education Agency to continue 40 percent on-campus hybrid Instruction for high school students as decided in the Aug. 3 special board meeting. The wavier request, which will be conditionally approved once received but is subject to further review by the TEA, will allow high school students to continue on an A/B schedule through the school year.
Coronavirus concerns
Over a dozen individuals spoke to the board during the public comment section. One speaker warned of potential suicides from depression in students learning from home, some said there was not enough PPE being provided to staff and others were concerned about the number of laptops available and quality of the technology provided for virtual learning.
Ted McClain, who spoke in person, was wearing a hazmat-style suit as a recommendation to the board for teachers to wear.
One virtual public speaker, Timothy Almendarez, criticized the use of data by the board.
“It seems to me you’re pulling some small little faction of data to somehow get students and teachers back for face-to-face schooling,” Almendarez said. “That doesn’t make any sense when you’re only creating a biological reservoir to continue the spread of the virus in the community itself.”
System failures resolved
When approximately 45,000 students logged on to begin their first day of class, Humble ISD announced they found a cyber attack, which was followed with criticism as some individuals on social media suggested the servers were not prepared for the spike in use by all students.
Chief Technology Officer for Humble ISD Dustin Hardin cleared the air regarding the matter during the board meeting and apologized for the issue.
“To say that we would lie or we would say that oh, ‘its a cyber attack, and it’s not is completely untrue,”’ Hardin said. “Just yesterday, we had a load problem with our email server whenever 7,000 teachers tried to email out to 80,000 parents basically, it backed up the email relay server.”
Hardin said they were transparent about the emails being backed up in the system and were able to resolve the issue. However, he said that was not what occurred Tuesday morning when students attempted to log in and that it was not in relation to a scaling or resource problem.
The MyHumble system is a Linux server. Hardin said they had an outside consultant look at the issue and found that the information was “consistent with a TCP SYN flood attack.” Restarting the system did not fix the problem around 8:30 a.m. and they got the cyber incident team network on Zoom. By 9 a.m. the SYN attack started going down, Hardin said, which allowed the system to return to normal. By 10:30 a.m., Hardin said they were able to pull data that 29,077 students authenticated into MyHumble, which is used to show attendance in asynchronous learning.
Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen thanked Hardin for his time to discuss the events of the attack that occurred.
“We appreciate that level of transparency,” Fagen said. “One of the things that we always strive to do is provide our community and our family with all of the information that we have available.”
Additional measures
After receiving suggestions from parents and staff for a change to the calendar for elementary staff and students the district made a change. Rather than having the elementary student holiday and staff workday on Feb. 22, 2021, it will be changed to Monday, Feb. 15, 2021 with the vote from the board passing 7-0. With the change, there are no other effects to the calendar and only affect elementary levels which still meet the state requirements.
In the special board meeting held on Aug. 3, students virtually participated in the public comment section to bring diversity initiatives forward again. Board Vice President Martina Lemond Dixon previously called for diversity initiatives at the June board meeting in the wake of protests surrounding George Floyd’s death in police custody. She said they are trying to figure out what works best for Humble ISD and are working to put a plan together, however it will not be an agenda item yet.
savannah.mehrtens@chron.com