Students and staff received an email regarding an issue with Canvas which resulted in accounts being shut down around 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 31.

In the email, Dr. Karen Ritter wrote, “Canvas is currently down for all staff and students. We will communicate next steps soon. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you at this time.”

At 1:19 p.m. on Thursday, another email was sent out by the district technology department stating that there had been an IT security incident.

“Some outside entity used whatever means they have to hack into the system for the purpose of student information,” technician Ryan Scholl said.

This outside entity affected students in Physical Welfare teacher Daniel Vanderjeugdt‘s classes.

On March 29 at 9:54 p.m., students received an inappropriate announcement that declared a mandatory anatomical inspection for all boys in the district.

“One of my students gave [Dr. Ritter] the information of what was sent out in it. She said, ‘We know it didn’t come from you, but we just want to let you know that if you get any students calling, please let us know,'” Vanderjeugdt said.

In addition to the false anatomical inspection email, one student also experienced grade changes on Canvas.

“I didn’t really notice the Canvas shut down because I was still logged in on my phone, but I did get a notification that I got a 999,999 out of 15 on an assignment. So my DECA grade was saying that I had about 6,000,000% and it looked cool, but then I got logged out of Canvas and had to reset my password,” senior Rabee Ahmad said.

At this time, the outside entity has not been identified. The technology department has resolved the security issue and is working to prevent future outside attacks by authenticating access to Canvas through students’ Google emails.