This article is the sixth in a seven-part series on my experience as an educator in the City School District of New Rochelle where I worked for 8 1/2 years.
One afternoon early in February and just after school had let out I was finishing some work on the instructor’s computer system in the lab and noticed a folder titled, ‘NOVELL’ in the SYSTEM FOLDER.
Immediately inside were two executable programs.
1. Novell Administrator was present, giving complete Administrator privileges to every user on the entire Novell Network throughout New Rochelle High School, along the entire District’s Backbone, meaning every server at every school in the DIstrict and access to BOCES direct connect server to New Rochelle, and access to the BOCES Server Farm in Elmsford that served some 64 Districts in the Lower Hudson Valley Region.
2. Novell Utility Software, a complete suite of utility programs that allowed changes to be made to the Novell servers anywhere in the above named systems, as well as diagnostic tools, and more.
Compounding matters, neither of these two executable programs were password protected.
Any user could simply click on them and take control of the Novell network. They were the “Kings to the Kingdom” left there for anyone to use.
In shocked disbelief, and not wanting to make any false accusations, I clicked on the applications.They launched immediately and were 100% accessible and active on the District’s Backbone, the BOCES Backbone, and astonishingly, on all 64 school district servers located at the BOCES’ Elmsford Server Farm.
I spent a very short period of time that afternoon only exploring the capabilities of the software for about 20 minutes to confirm that I could not initially believe — that someone had exposed the entire network across 64 school district to any user on the system.
I found I was able to navigate to any server on the Novell Network backbone: Albert Leonard Middle School, New Rochelle High School, etc., and the Administration Building where I stopped when I realized that I could access the Finance and Personnel areas of the Admin server with the next click or two.
I also confirmed access to, but did not enter the New Rochelle BOCES server, and also confirmed that I could pull up an icon map for the 64 district servers in the BOCES server farm.
This meant that with just a click, anyone with this software could access any of the 64 school district’s network backbone, navigate to any server along their District’s NOVELL backbone, and infiltrate the data contained on those servers, and the individual computers that ‘hung on their network backbone’.
It would be difficult to overstate the degree of risk placing these programs in the system folder.
Truly frightened and what I had just seen I immediately shut down the system.
I then took three steps:
- I immediately notified Ron Morris, my direct report supervisor that not only was the entire District at risk, but more importantly in my mind (thinking in loco parentis) that children were in harm’s way. Cognitive development does not complete until around age 24, maturation is an issue, neuroplasticity factors into the equation: these kids were at risk. Immature kids do stupid things simply because their cognitive development has not matured to the point of adequate checks and balances.
- Verified that the two executable programs were on every computer system in the computer lab and that they fit easily onto a 3.5” floppy disk, flash drive, or CD-ROM and so were transportable to homes and other computers inside and outside of the building. Furthermore, the District’s backbone WAS accessible over the Internet via a home modem or home network. This meant that all other Novell Backbones related to the BOCES Server Farm were accessible, also.
- I picked up the phone and placed a call to Novell’s National Corporate Headquarters. There I spoke with the Vice President for Security. I relayed to her what I had found. She confirmed my worst fears — that the software could easily migrate across Novell Servers without user intervention, that kids were at risk, and that the only way to ensure the children’s safety and all of the participating District’s data security at this juncture was for every School District connected to the BOCES Server Farm to undergo a complete audit of EVERY computer in their District with access to any/all Novell networks and Backbones in any/all Districts. A systematic, expensive, time consuming, but necessary audit. And the City School District of New Rochelle was liable for all of the expenses related to conducting this security audit. Coleman was the Project Director and Responsible District Official that directed the BOCES team.
When you understand the full depth of Coleman’s error you can start to appreciate why it became so critical for her to seek to destroy my reputation and drive me out of the District and, beyond that, the statewide education system.
I met up with Ron Morris and Larry Green. Ron was in a state of high anxiety. He did not know what to do but we are all quite nervous.
Finally, Morris said, “Just do your job Yanni and forget about this!”
I became agitated and said emphatically, “Ron, you must do something about this security breach…kids are at danger, we as teachers are committed to acting ‘in loco parentis’ to protect children, and the District is at risk, as are all of the other 64 school districts and their children.”
To my utter shock, Morris, who is African-American, said “Boys, let me tell you something…down South Carolina way where I come from there are two types of niggers: house niggers whose working conditions are easier and field niggers who work long hard hours under all kinds of conditions. Now, here at New Rochelle High School, they’ve allowed me to be one of the house niggers…and, I am not going to risk that for some security breach.” He turned on his heel and walked briskly out of the atrium and down the hallway.
I apologize for relating such offensive language. I merely report it in attempt to explain why my direct supervisor refused to take action in this urgent situation.
The ‘solution’ to a security breach like that on the Novell Network is not less than an audit of all system servers within all 64 school districts, and each and every individual computer within each of those districts. In other words, a system-by-system software audit of hundreds of servers and thousands of individual computer systems: and Coleman and the City School District of New Rochelle hold the administrative and financial liability for this security breach.
Teachers, administrators, and school board members are legally obligated to act ‘in loco parentis’ — Latin for “in the place of a parent” — which refers to the legal responsibility of a teacher to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. Although not allowing what would be considered violations of the students’ civil liberties.
I have always held this responsibility as paramount in the fulfillment of my professional duties as a teacher because cognitive development continues through the mid-twenties, maturity levels of students vary, and neuroplasticity all mean that intelligent oversight is required in the classroom.
Word of the BOCES-Coleman implemented security breach apparently got back to Coleman, the new District Technology Director who personally oversaw the alleged “upgrade” of the smooth running, and productive learning environment that ran for years on a Windows network with Windows Platforms to the Novell system that crippled the curriculum for the rest of the school year.
From February through June—students could not save their files to the Novell Server (no file space assignments were made available to students or to Ray, the para-professional who oversaw the 3rd floor computer labs), save their work at the end of a class session and their computers crashed, print their drawings (not enough bandwidth and the wrong printer drivers for a Novell system), create the beautiful interactive PowerPoint walkthroughs, utilize the H-P Plotter.
Coleman had rendered our computer lab useless.
As a result of Coleman’s complete and utter incompetence, ignorance, belligerence and ineptitude, the complete Architectural Design 1-3 curricula was completely disabled. Worse, Coleman didn’t have a clue as to what corrective action was required, and what a loss this was to the students. How could she? She wasn’t an educator, she was an insecure, dysfunctional, maniacal, power-hungry bureaucrat of the worst order.
It meant upgrading/replacing the broken and compromised Novell Server, increasing the network bandwidth to accommodate all of the users who would be trying to save documents at the end of a class period, permitting students access to their local hard drives that the District had invested heavily in, upgrading the NIC (network interface card) on the H-P Plotter to run on a Novell Network, defining and disseminating all of the user accounts and setting temporary passwords so that students could access their file space, training Al and others on the latest Novell network protocols and giving them administrator access so that they could do their jobs competently, locating and closing all of the student-created ‘back doors’ to the Novell Server that Blumkin’s students had programmed, conducting an historical audit (if possible) of all of the illegal entries to the Novell Server and locating all of the hacked student records that raised or lowered GPA’s, identifying the students who had committed fraud and grand larceny by shaking down their class peers for either better, or lower grades, and the list goes on.
So, what did Coleman do?
Nothing.
Instead, she launched a campaign to destroy my reputation and my career so no one would believe me what I tried to explain what had gone wrong with the Novell network and that it was the result of Coleman’s incompetence.
The school year came to a close with more incursions by Larry Swack stemming from Coleman’s increasing paranoia that she would be exposed for the failed administrator that she was.
Over the summer, my ailing father-in-law, the man I had moved back to New York to be near, passed away. Concerns about Coleman and her machinations took a back seat to more pressing family concerns.
It was in the midst of dealing with my wife’s grief that I was sent a document from the District containing a litany of false and malicious allegations made by Coleman against me.
I would never see the inside of a New Rochelle classroom again.
NEXT: Part VII coming soon.