Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey kept classrooms open during a districtwide network outage that disrupted communications and digital instruction throughout the first week of school.
The district initially attributed the outage to equipment failure. “We have confirmed that a networking hardware failure caused the disruption across all district schools and offices,” Superintendent Raymond González wrote in a Tuesday notice.
By Thursday, however, González said the cause remained under investigation. “We are aware of claims and other information circulating online related to this matter,” he wrote. The district said those claims were being reviewed but declined to speculate about the cause.
The outage disabled internet and Wi-Fi, online instructional tools, clocks, telephone lines and the student information system, including parent portals, attendance recording and gradebook access. Teachers used printed materials, discussions, writing and other activities that did not require network access.
Schools remained open, and officials said emergency communications continued to function. “Each Westfield school has a direct method of communicating with our public safety dispatch center that operates independently of the telephone system,” Mayor Jeremy Berman wrote Friday. He said the police chief had no concerns about schools’ ability to report an emergency or public safety teams’ ability to respond.
The district said Sunday that external telephone service had been restored at every school and district building. Work continued on other systems, with no final restoration date announced.
The district has publicly called the problems a “technology disruption” and has not characterized them as a cybersecurity incident. It has not confirmed a cyberattack, ransomware, data theft or a breach affecting employees or students.
INC Ransom separately claimed responsibility and listed the district on its leak site. A record indexed by ransomware.live shows the listing appeared Wednesday, one day after the outage began.
Images displayed with the listing appeared to include employee Form W-2 wage and tax statements. A separate entry posted Sunday was labeled “Full” and described financial data and contracts.
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DysruptionHub could not independently verify the files’ authenticity or origin. The listing does not establish that INC Ransom caused the outage, that ransomware encrypted district systems or that all material described by the group came from Westfield Public Schools.
Westfield Public Schools enrolls about 6,000 students across 10 schools. The district serves Westfield, a Union County town about 22 miles southwest of New York City.
Westfield’s decision to remain open contrasts with another recent school-system disruption. Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts closed 64 schools Tuesday after a cyber incident disrupted systems needed for essential operations.
Westfield Public Schools has not disclosed the outage’s cause, how its network was initially accessed, whether information was copied or how many people could be affected. The district did not respond to questions before publication.
