New Mexico’s Public Education Secretary, APS Superintendent, OBAE officials and other dignitaries will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony on August 15 to mark the official launch of the Statewide Education Network (SEN). The ceremony will mark a milestone in a New Mexico connectivity project that will eventually link hundreds of thousands of students. Dozens of schools have already connected to the school-centric broadband network.
A Las Cruces Digest Report
Source(s): New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion (OBAE), News Channel 9, Gadsden Independent School District
Of the dozens of schools already connected, Gadsden Independent School District in Santa Teresa was the first New Mexico district to be plugged into the new broadband network.
Gadsden hit with ransomware attack… again
...but this time its different.
On Tuesday afternoon, Gadsden ISD was attacked. News Channel 9 reports: “…immediate steps were taken to secure all systems and mitigate the impact.” In a news release, school officials made clear neither employee nor student data had been compromised. “Our team is working diligently to resolve this issue and restore normal operations as quickly as possible. We will continue to keep our community informed as we progress.”
Unlike in 2020, when Gadsden ISD was hit with multiple cyber attacks, the “team” referred to in the news release is much larger, and much more prepared. Now, Gadsden stands with all districts in the State Education Network (SEN). SEN aspires to oversee the daily operations and cybersecurity of the system, statewide. GISD no longer stands alone.
What is the State Education Network (SEN)?
For New Mexico schools and school districts, the state is remote, rural & sparsely populated in many areas and IT expertise is not uniformly available. The Statewide Education Network (SEN) will provide better connectivity and expert network management. SEN is the foundation for the state-coordinated “middle mile,” or “broadband highway.”
SEN aims to eventually allow students across the state to share classes and resources throughout the district and beyond. State officials say by connecting schools, students could share outside courses, clubs and link to sites that could help them address social and health issues. The new system could also provide tutoring assistance, mental health access and college preparation materials. Farmington, a recent addition to the network, has more than 11,000 students.
SEN is optional for schools, but the network will take the administrative burden of procuring internet off schools around New Mexico. It hopes to interconnect all New Mexico schools by 2027.
Will it be more secure for a school district to connect to SEN?
According to one Broadband Development and Connectivity Program manager: “It will.” Specifics of how SEN will be more secure than individual districts “going it on their own” will not be discussed in this article due to the nature of malicious cyber activity. [We have to be clear-minded about cyber security. Hackers will use any source of information to discover weaknesses in security, including articles written on obscure news aggregators like Las Cruces Digest.]
As the initial adopter of the State Education Network, Gadsden stands as the canary in a coal mine. “Gadsden schools has the SEN connection active and [SEN personnel are] working with the district’s IT department to fine tune it.”
If we use Tuesday’s ransomware attack as a litmus test, the results are promising. Neither student nor employee personal information was compromised, and instruction in the whole of Gadsden ISD has been disrupted to a lesser extent than mechanical problems with the air conditioning system at Mayfield High School in Las Cruces. [Details: a notice sent to Mayfield High School parents on Tuesday, August 13: “The air conditioning units at our school have experienced a mechanical failure and temperatures are rising in the classrooms. As a result, we have decided to release students early today at 1:45 (bus riders will be leaving school at approximately 2 p.m.) and will have students work remotely tomorrow, Wednesday, Aug. 14, while we work to repair the units.”]
Are other districts in our broader community planning on joining SEN?
Leveraging federal funding, all local public school districts are already connected to the internet on a scalable fiber-optic network, so the infrastructure already exists. As a part of “Phase 1”, Hatch Public Schools is slated to connect to SEN in the coming months. Las Cruces Public Schools connection to SEN is pending procurement via Request for Proposal (RFP) provisioning, and will be finalized once contracts have been awarded.
What about New Mexico State University?
“The SEN is a K12-centric, high capacity and scalable optical broadband network, coordinated by the NM Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, operated by the Office, developed in collaboration with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) -large and small- throughout the state, through contracts held by the state. The SEN is intended to connect all the public schools in the state who want to participate (participation is voluntary) – together and to more secure internet. One of the strategic goals for the network is cost-effectiveness, because of economies of scale and by maximizing federal funding available to schools. The SEN nodes are located primarily at higher education institutions throughout the state on purpose – to reinforce and strengthen K12 and HigherEd (colleges and universities) collaboration at the regional and statewide level. ” New Mexico State University has been instrumental in the implementation of SEN in our broader community. Once source with OBAE made explicit reference to NMSU, and wanted to be sure they understood how much their help was appreciated in “[helping to] stand up the SEN node for Las Cruces / South-Central area of the state.”
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
New Mexico’s Public Education Secretary, APS Superintendent, OBAE officials and other dignitaries will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony on August 15 to mark the official launch of the Statewide Education Network (SEN). The ceremony will mark a milestone in a New Mexico connectivity project that will eventually link hundreds of thousands of students. Dozens of schools have already connected to the school-centric broadband network.
The ribbon cutting will take place at the 21st Century Public Academy at 10am.
