Just before the busy lunch rush Monday, the registers in the Dining Hall Commons went down as a result of problems started by the virus that recently attacked Moorestown Friends School’s computer system.

According to the SAGE Food Service Director Stacy Mishkin, the dining hall was initially hit on September 20 by the same virus that affected the school’s main networks on September 10, but the registers did not go down until September 23.

#Breakingnews The computer system in the Dining Hall Commons is currently down. A clicker system is temporarily being used to keep track of the number of students who get food from the Dining Hall. #WordsWorth pic.twitter.com/NbxgYed1Pp

— MFS WordsWorth (@MFSWordsWorth) September 23, 2019

“During the virus that affected the whole school, we were running our registers offline, which means [the] information wasn’t talking to the system,” said Mishkin. “People couldn’t see their balances because we were running offline. So finally, when the WiFi was back up and [the school] moved everything to a new server, they went to go sync our information and get everything back . . . and what happened was the files were corrupted and we lost our registers.”

With the registers down, students were unable to access their lunch accounts. Mishkin said the reason why students couldn’t receive access is because the information in the computer system was unresponsive.  The student accounts themselves were not affected, however, and nothing was deducted from them. 

Mishkin said the Dining Hall would not be charging students for the food they got on Monday or Tuesday. Mishkin requested for people “to please be courteous” and “sustainable” with the amount of food they got from the Dining Hall since the students weren’t paying for their meals. 

Head of Upper School Meredith Godley said she heard about the problem with the registers the period before Upper School lunch from Middle School Dean of Students Bee Stribling and Middle School Director Kimberly Clarkson.  

“We were hoping they’d be up and running before [Upper School] lunch,” Godley explained. “Mr. Miller put up signs on the outside of the DHC just to let people know, and we thought we would be up there for lunch just helping the lunch staff organize and direct students.” 

In order to keep track of the number of students that got lunch from the dining hall while the systems were down, the staff implemented a clicker system.  At each register, a dining hall staff member was equipped with a tally counter that allowed them to count the number of students who get food with the click of a button. Each student was tallied for their food and there was no re-entry for students once they got their food.

In addition to the clicker system, teachers stepped in to help guide the influx of students coming into the lunch room. These teachers were acting as bouncers, helping keep track of which students had and had not gotten lunch, and keeping order in the massive lines for food. 

English Teacher Clare MacKenzie said she “came and got lunch a little earlier because I knew that lunch would be kind of crazy.” MacKenzie, along with multiple other teachers, served as bouncers at lunch on Tuesday.

MacKenzie said she could tell that some students “were feeling frustrated and grouchy,” waiting in the long lines, but she thought that “when I talked to a few of them and reminded them that [the Dining Hall Staff] was having a way more frustrating day, they seemed to take it in stride . . . I think they were pretty empathetic once they thought about everybody [in the Dining Hall] having to deal with it.”

One of the biggest challenges for students was the length of time it took to get lunch. “I have a club to go to, so I’m probably already really late,” said Elysa McKinney (’22). “I’m a little annoyed, a little confused too. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Since the attack, the dining hall has been working patiently with MFS’s Director of Technology, Steve Kolaris, to fix the computer systems as soon as possible. Kolaris is currently working to fix the systems and is unable to comment on the current situation. 

Mishkin says that they are hopeful that the Dining Hall’s computer system will be back up and running within the next day or so.