SEATTLE — It has been two and a half weeks since more than 17,000 students at Highline Public Schools returned to classrooms after schools were temporarily shuttered because a hacker was discovered on the district's network.
However, the disruption is far from over. The district's 35 schools have had no internet or computer access ever since. A current teacher at the district spoke with KING 5 on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of retaliation.
"How are people supposed to do their work?" the teacher said. "Are they always going to be writing things by hand and having it be copied? It's been two weeks now that we've been teaching without-- without computer access."
The district is still requiring students and staff to stay off their district-issued computers and Chromebooks.
"And a lot of our students, they can't necessarily afford to buy another device," the teacher said.
She said district leaders are being tight-lipped about an estimated timeframe for restoration.
"The hardest thing is, we don't know when this is going to end," the teacher said.
The headaches continue. For example, the teacher said the staff can't access Google Drive where they were told to write their curriculums.
"All the work that we've done, we can't find," the teacher said. "So we are having to recreate."
The teacher, who is salaried and not hourly, said the problem's been adding hours to their workday.
"If I want to contact a parent, it would be maybe, like, a half an hour of contacting various people to get that information, whereas it before it would be, you know, less than a minute," the teacher said.
For more than half a month now, staff and the more than 17,000 students in the district have had no Internet.
"But what about some of the online things?" the teacher said. "What about applying for colleges? What about the FAFSA?"
The incident has led to many questions, but few answers.
"I don't know if we will have, like, heat in the winter," the teacher said.
The teacher said their building's heat is controlled by the off-limits network.
"Is it going to be weeks?" the teacher said. "It's already been two weeks. It's going to be another two weeks? Is it going to be months?"
The teacher added, "We've asked them. They said they can't-- they don't know, or they can't say."
On Thursday, district staff wrote on its website that they have taken steps to allow them to "restore certain segments of their digital network," but did not elaborate.
As the district works with state and federal partners to investigate the unauthorized access, this teacher is asking for the community's help.
"There's a lot of tech companies in the Seattle area," the teacher said. "Could they donate hot spots to us, so that we could get work done? One to every school? Or, you know, or two to every school?"
If you're interested in donating technology to Highline's classrooms, feel free to reach out to reporter Maddie White at mwhite@king5.com, so she may point you in the right direction.