Submitted by Candyce Hernandez.
What happens when your email goes to quarantine? Fewer things are less transparent than CPSD. The hack that happened earlier this year is evidence of that. The fact that parents are still in the dark as to what information has been leaked and if our children’s information is at risk is absolutely representative of the problems we have an opportunity vote out this November.
What else has been impacted? Our ability to access our elected school board officials. Apparently, Covid isn’t the only thing being quarantined. According to a letter I received by Ron Banner my emails have been “quarantined” as well.
“This past weekend , on Aug. 7 , you sent an email to the district office to be read at the Aug. 9 , 2021 , board meeting , I want to apologize on behalf of the school district that we did not receive your letter until after the meeting . In fact , an attendee at the meeting mentioned you had sent an email and showed us a copy of your email her telephone . This spurred us to ask our technology services department to research the matter to identify why we did not receive the email . Our technology department searched through 3000+ emails between June and the current date addressed to cwlewis@cloverpark.k12.wa us to review the status of all messages received . The search revealed that the email you sent on Aug. 7 was received , but indicates it was not delivered to the recipient , and instead was placed in quarantine through Office 365 . A cyber – attack occurred in the district in late May and since that period all emails are automatically screened through quarantine as a preventative measure prior to being released to recipients, Office 365, the system we use , identified your email as spam-ish and automatically placed it in quarantine. Quarantine is a temporary hold placed on messages that requires our technology services staff to screen and manually release emails to recipients . The district apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused. We have set up a system for the Board’s secretary to screen the quarantine folder on a regular basis to ensure Board meeting messages are received in a timely manner .
Sincerely, Ron Banner”
Clearly, this is an issue. If they are aware that emails are being quarantined, would not the responsible action be to make a different publicly accessible email so the constituents can reach their elected officials on the board?
I’m not the only one with this issue, and it was more than just one of my emails. How can we be “#bettertogether” if some of us aren’t being heard?
When you make things difficult to do expect less of it.
When you make things easier to do expect more of it.
It’s the way the world works.
It’s a matter of design.
It’s a matter of intent.
Ms. Hernandez,
It sounds like the CPSD leadership listened to you. You brought up an issue with your email and the superintendent responded and gave you a solution that will be a common practice moving forward.
Do you say leadership doesn’t listen because you don’t like the response?
Why was it that the Superintendent, an employee, responded to a citizen request and not the Board members, whom citizen’s elected as their representatives? Asleep at the wheel again! Listening is different that responding. That the “leadership” responded in an unacceptable way is independent of the request’s validity. “Let them eat cake” was an unacceptable response from “leadership” to the request for bread for the starving masses which was valid………….with predictable results. Off with their heads! Learn to differentiate between the two!
There response was a nonresponse to the letter that was sent.
I sent a letter with the intent of having it read on the 8/9 board as a community comment.
Further, more of my emails seem to be being “quarantined”.
It’s not that I am dissatisfied with the response to my letter, because that’s not received a response. The response they sent was in regards to the treatment of my letter.
Good thing I filed a FOIA. I do plan on letting parents know how to keep their emails out of quarantine.
I got a very similar letter from Ron Banner. I sent a letter to the board in June. It was not read at the June or July school board meetings. I resubmitted it in August, and let Carmen know I had originally sent it almost two months earlier. It was finally read at the August meeting, but yours wasn’t. I tried to sign up to read yours, but was declined by Marty Schafer. I was told emails don’t get lost by Marty Schafer. When I told Marty that I was proof they got lost or misplaced, he basically called me a liar and refused to let me speak. I went to him after the meeting and showed him proof my original email was sent in June. The letter I received from Ron explained that my email was also put in quarantine….for TWO MONTHS! How long would my email have stayed in quarantine had I not resent it. How do they define what’s “spam-ish” and what isn’t? I’m tired of their lack of leadership being blamed on the malware attack. Maybe, just maybe, this thousands of dollars they’ve dumped in dividing our children would have been better spent on better security to avoid this from happening. We still haven’t been told what, if any, sensitive information about our children is in the hands of the hacker. We need NEW leadership that ACTUALLY listens to parents! Our kids deserve better than being in the bottom 1/3 of the state!
How Marty treated you was atrocious and he should apologize for his childish behavior.