Last night there was an emergency session of the Fall River School Committee to have an executive discussion about the recent cyber attack that hit the district.
I find it troubling that some current members of the Fall River School Committee couldn’t even agree to go into the executive session to discuss the situation without trying to turn the meeting into a witch hunt against the mayor or to use the forum as an opportunity to air their grievances against one another.
Nothing about the arguments the committee members were raising, nor their attempt to censure Mayor Paul Coogan for talking to the media, had anything to do with anything that would help the staff, students or families of Fall River.
The constant sniping, bickering and, frankly, ganging up on one another shown by a small handful of the Committee serves zero purpose towards the greater good. The Fall River Schools.
(As an aside, I suspect that many of the same Committee members who had problems with the Mayor talking to the press in generalities about the attack would have instead taken issue if the Mayor had not said anything publicly at all, and would have levied charges of him ‘hiding from the problem.’)
Yes, the fact that our schools got hacked is horrible, and, like a lot of parents, I do
want answers. Answers on what happened, and answers on what information was captured. I am a Security Analyst in my day job, and have a somewhat personal interest especially in also learning what precautions were missed that allowed the attack to happen and, most importantly, what steps have been or are going to be taken to help prevent similar attacks in the future.
(As a second aside, I can also say that having your network hit by cybercriminals is no longer a question of “If” it will happen, but “When” and “What can we do to minimize the damage?” It is way too early, at least in what is publicly known, to be pointing fingers and blame.)
But I also know that these answers are not necessarily known at this time, and even the answers that are known cannot be made publicly available while a criminal investigation is still ongoing.
And I’m not sure which would be worse; That the School Committee doesn’t also know this, or that they do indeed know this and still chose to strut around asking questions on camera that they knew could not be answered, at least not in an open public session.
Which is exactly why I am running for School Committee in 2025. We need a Committee comprised of people who are not up on the stage primarily to promote personal agendas and drive personal vendettas.
The people of Fall River deserve a committed group of Committeepersons whose only goal is to work together to make the Fall River School District become the best it can possibly be. For the students, for the teachers and for the entire city of Fall River.
I want to help make this happen. Not only for my children, but for the entire city. We can make this happen. We’ll Try Together, and We’ll Succeed Together.