{"id":17733,"date":"2026-06-23T11:56:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17733"},"modified":"2026-06-23T11:56:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:56:05","slug":"christchurchs-hillmorton-high-school-closes-for-two-days-after-rats-damage-fibre-cable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17733","title":{"rendered":"Christchurch&#8217;s Hillmorton High School closes for two days after rats damage fibre cable"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>Christchurch&#8217;s Hillmorton High School has been forced to close for two days because rats have damaged a fibre cable and the internet is down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>Student were asked to work from home on Monday and Tuesday while repairs were done at the school.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>In a school newsletter, principal Sam Ainsworth said staff discovered the problem on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, we have a cabling issue with a core fibre cable connection that has been severely damaged by rodents over the weekend. This fibre connection is our main connection to the school and as a result of the damage, I have concerns about managing the health and safety of large numbers of students,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>&#8220;While I know that this will not be a popular decision for all and may be challenging for many families, it is a decision we have not taken lightly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>Ainsworth said the school&#8217;s servers were down, there was no Wifi network or phone system and staff had lost access to CCTV.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>Any assessments due to take place on Tuesday would be rescheduled, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>&#8220;We are confident and hopeful that Wednesday will run as normal. The cabling company will spend all day [Tuesday] running a new cable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>&#8220;We are confident that even if the network is not fully up and running, we will have had time to make provisions to ensure students can return to school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text leading-normal mb-12\">\n<p>The Ministry of Education has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Source: RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christchurch&#8217;s Hillmorton High School has been forced to close for two days because rats have damaged a fibre cable and the internet is down. Student were asked to work from home on Monday and Tuesday while repairs were done at the school. In a school newsletter, principal Sam Ainsworth said staff discovered the problem on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17735,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17733\/revisions\/17735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}