Arrest in Cyberattacks on Miami-Dade School System; Parents Grapple with Back to School
SCIUTTO: This breaking news just in to CNN. An arrest has now been made following the cyber-attacks targeting Miami-Dade Public Schools which interrupted remote learning for thousands of children that they and their families are depending on. CNN's Rosa Flores following the story from Miami. Rosa, as we were talking about this yesterday, I asked, did they have a sense of where this was coming from. So who's been arrested here?</s>ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, we just learned this from the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. They say that a 16-year-old, a junior in high school, has been arrested here in Miami and on two charges, Jim. First of all, computer use and an attempt to defraud, a third degree felony, and also interference with an educational institution, which is a second degree misdemeanor. Now, according to the school district, this teenager admitted to at least eight attacks and, according to the district, these are distributed denial of service attacks and that this teenager used some sort of online application to execute these attacks. Now, just to give you an idea of what these are, imagine a million people knocking at your door at the same time trying to enter. That's exactly what these types of cyberattacks do, which then bottle neck the system and don't allow anyone to enter, in this case students and teachers trying to just learn, their virtual learning online. Now, according to the district, the FBI, the Secret Service and the FDLE, which is the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, are involved and they are helping with this investigation. Now, the superintendent said in this statement that we just received moments ago that other attackers are out there, Jim. And you and I talked about this yesterday. Where are these attackers coming from? We learned late yesterday that the -- that the police chief from the Miami-Dade County Public Schools say that they believe that they have traced some of those IP addresses to foreign and domestic sources. Now we know, of course, the breaking news coming out of Miami is that a 16-year-old has been arrested with two charges in this case. Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: Wow. Remarkable. Remarkable damage done there too. Rosa Flores, thanks very much. Well, health officials in Los Angeles County will now allow in-person learning for at least some students this fall. Public school buildings will be opened for those with individualized education plans and those with special needs. This as the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, says that parents have the right to choose the education option that is best for their families. CNN's Bianna Golodryga has more on what is a very tough choice for parents.</s>ISABELLA AYBAR, STUDENT: I feel so happy that I want to explode.</s>BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST (voice over): For five-year-old Isabella and her 13-year-old brother, Kelvin, going back to school is a long-awaited return to some form of normalcy.</s>KELVIN ESPINAL, STUDENT: It's at the schoolhouse from 8-2:20. I think I'm going to learn more.</s>GOLODRYGA: Like millions of other students across the country, remote learning has been a struggle for the Brooklyn, New York, siblings.</s>KARLA MONCADA, MOTHER: I had so much stress getting my daughter to learn in the remote learning. And she cried most of the time. My son, he distracted himself by talking to his peers and playing on the computer.</s>GOLODRYGA: But returning to in-person instruction is not without risk. Their mother, Karla, suffered a improbable case of Covid-19 in the spring, when tests were scarce. She says her asthma made her recovery much more different.</s>MONCADA: It was very scary. I thought I was going to die. So I don't wish that on anybody.</s>GOLODRYGA: She worries about sending her children back to school, especially Isabella, who also has asthma, but says the alternative, another semester online, would be even worse.</s>MONCADA: I don't have a choice. But it's either, you know, try to get her into this education phase that she is going through that is so essential, or, you know, just stay at home and do the same thing that we did last time.</s>GOLODRYGA: Two-thirds of the 100 largest school districts in the country are starting the school year entirely online.</s>EMILY OSTER, AUTHOR, "EXPECTING BETTER": School reopening is really important for our society. It's not that I think that we should reopen at all costs, but I think that trying to do this safely in places where we can do it safely seems just really important for kids, for getting people back to work, for the mental health of parents, for learning.</s>GOLODRYGA: As doctors continue to study how susceptible children are to the coronavirus and whether they transmit the disease as easily as adults, dozens of schools that have reopened have already experienced outbreaks and thousands of students and teachers have been forced to quarantine just weeks into the school year. Some teachers unions have fought against returning to in-person learning, threatening not to return to the classroom unless additional safety measures are taken.</s>BECKY PRINGLE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: We cannot open our school buildings unless it is safe.</s>GOLODRYGA: For parents like Karla, still haunted by scenes like this one in a Georgia high school, where packed hallways full of maskless students ultimately led to positive cases and a school shutdown, the decision to send her kids back to school wasn't an easy one, proof that there are no easy choices in a pandemic.</s>MONCADA: And we tried this. Let's see how this works.</s>GOLODRYGA: It's so difficult for so many parents across this country, Jim. And as you know, here in New York City, the mayor has delayed the start to in-person classes, which would be one to three days a week by ten days. So they will resume September 21st. This, of course, came from a lot of pressure from teachers unions who wanted more safety put in place and for ventilation and for nurses and for more testing around schools across the city. And this is just one example, of course, of one big city that the world whole and, of course, our country here will be watching closely as students start to go back to school. It does come with some risk, but we know the downside as well to online learning.</s>SCIUTTO: And New York has gotten its positivity rate down way down, which is one of those benchmarks for opening safely.</s>GOLODRYGA: Right.</s>SCIUTTO: Bianna Golodryga, thanks very much.</s>GOLODRYGA: Sure.</s>SCIUTTO: More than a dozen NBA teams are now planning to use their arenas as voting centers this November. How could this impact the 2020 race? How many voters will this be a service to? We're going to have more on this, next.