According to Superintendent Michael Beresford, the school board toured the two new Carmel Clay Schools (CCS) elementary schools on Feb. 22, and they should be open for occupancy by July and open houses before the start of school. Additionally, at the Feb. 8 board meeting, CCS hosted a cybersecurity workshop.

“We toured Clay Center Elementary School on the inside, and then we did a drive around the the new Carmel Elementary School last night (on Feb. 22),” Beresford said. “When we work on planning for a building, a lot of it’s drawings and floor plans and that sort of thing, so when you actually get to go in and see it three-dimensionally and being built, it’s really fun and exciting. I think those are gonna be really neat schools, and I think kids will really enjoy that space. We’re set to take occupancy (of the new elementary schools) in July.”

As for the cybersecurity workshop, Beresford said it was very insightful, especially in light of the recent hacking of SolarWinds, a company which provides software for the US government and many companies. He said CCS actually uses a SolarWinds product, but it was not one compromised; nonetheless, the incident emphasized the importance cybersecurity.

“We had our whole tech team present (a technology report) which was really cool because they’re usually behind the scenes,” Beresford said. “One thing that they stressed, which I thought was probably that the highlight of the workshop, was that cybersecurity isn’t the technology department’s job. It’s all of our jobs because we have to work as a community together in order to keep our information services and our technology safe for kids to use.”

Jinhee Won, president of CyberPatriot and junior, said she thinks CHS overall does a good job with cybersecurity. She also added the IT department here is very helpful, especially in helping her with CyberPatriot activities.

“As a student, I don’t really know too much about the inner workings of CHS cybersecurity,” Won said via email. “However, as a user and someone who does know a little about the subject, I do think it’s decent. Although it gets restrictive sometimes, it makes sense in order to prevent viruses from infecting school computers. However, one thing that CHS could improve on though is probably a better system for the school’s IT department to communicate with the students. I, like many of my friends, was very hesitant about downloading the WiFi certificate at the beginning of the year because of the risks it can sometimes cause to our privacy. If they had explained what the certificate was and why it was necessary, I feel that it would have helped assuage many people’s thoughts.”