District technology director outlines recovery from cyber incident and network changes
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Summary
CTO Andrew Langdon told trustees the district recovered critical data after an October cyber incident, is consolidating student-safety products, and expects county Office of Education transitions and network topology changes that will shift services this summer and next.
Andrew Langdon, the district chief technology officer, presented a technology update that covered support volume, infrastructure changes, and a fall cyber incident that affected district systems.
Langdon said the district has handled 1,377 service tickets since July 1, supports about 9,000 combined students and staff on district networks and serves as a node for 14 districts across the county. He described a planned transition in which the county office of education will assume network support for a portion of partner sites this summer and next, citing timelines the county provided and noting some remote sites will move to alternatives such as Starlink.
Langdon reviewed the district's Oct. 9 cyber incident, which required about 20 days to fully recover critical data. He reported staff recovered systems and worked with the firewall provider and state incident-response partners; the district has since bolstered backups, invested in a new firewall, and is evaluating third-party penetration testing. He credited in-house staff with rebuilding key systems quickly following the incident.
Planned changes include consolidating classroom-management and student-safety tools (GoGuardian, SysCloud and IBoss) into a single product to simplify management and reduce costs; migrating from direct-print to Uniflow; and updating communication systems (ParentSquare). Langdon said the district is updating aging devices for a Windows 11 transition and replacing core network storage this summer.
Trustees asked about ticket breakdowns (hardware vs. software); Langdon estimated roughly 75% of tickets are software-related but said he would verify exact figures. Board members thanked the technology team for rapid incident response and ongoing support.
Next steps: staff will provide any requested ticket breakdowns and continue to coordinate with the county on the transition timeline.
