Student And Parent Systems Back Online In Westfield, School Ends Daily Updates

WESTFIELD, NJ — Westfield school officials said key student and family technology services have largely been restored after the districtwide disruption that began Sept. 1.

This marked what Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez called an "important milestone" in the recovery effort.

In a community update on Tuesday, Gonzalez wrote, "The user-facing systems and services our students, staff, and families rely upon have now largely been restored, and we continue to make progress on the remaining devices and services."

The latest update outlined several specific steps in the district’s restoration work.

Gonzalez said, "The onboarding of secondary student devices has been successfully completed, restoring Chromebook access for our intermediate and high school students."

He also wrote that work was continuing on elementary Chromebook carts in grades 1, 2 and 3, with grades 4 and 5 also being completed at the elementary schools.

Families were also told that Parent Portal access would return shortly.

Gonzalez wrote, "Parent Portal access will be restored by the end of the day tomorrow, allowing families once again to view student information and report absences electronically."

The superintendent said the district will now stop issuing daily districtwide restoration updates as schools move closer to normal operations.

"We have now progressed to a point where our regular user-facing systems have been restored and our schools can increasingly return to their normal routines," said Gonzalez.

Gonzalez also said the incident response is not over.

"This does not mean that all work associated with this incident has concluded. Our external cybersecurity and information technology experts continue their work behind the scenes, including the ongoing investigation and other necessary technical work," said Gonzalez.

At the Tuesday Board of Education meeting, Board of Education President Robert Bennachio used the meeting to thank district staff, teachers, administrators, town officials, first responders and outside partners.

He said district technical staff had been "working absolutely tirelessly since this happened," and said police and fire personnel were in school buildings "conducting drills and ensuring you know that our safety systems were not compromised."

Looking back on the past two weeks, Gonzalez wrote that the district had moved "from a district without network or telephone access to one in which our phones, building systems, staff and student devices, internet access, instructional tools, and other essential services are once again available."

"There is still work happening, but our schools are moving forward," said Gonzalez.

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