The district, which serves about 36,000 middle and high school students in South County, wouldn't say whether there had been a cybersecurity breach. It has released few details about what happened and has not said when the systems would be restored or whether people's data had been compromised.
The outage was discovered Sunday in the district's Microsoft systems, including Outlook, according to the Sweetwater teachers union. The following day, the district's internet and student information system, Infinite Campus, were shut down in the afternoon "to ensure that no other systems could be affected," the union said in an email to members on Wednesday.
The internet was still down as of Thursday, and the district has given out hot spots, district spokesperson Nadege Johnson said.
Teachers were told to prepare all their lessons to be offline for the rest of this week, but it's unclear what teachers can expect to happen next week.
Sweetwater is conducting a forensic investigation. If any data breach occurred, the district said it will tell those who were affected and offer monitoring services, the union said.
"We want our students and the SUHSD community to know that we place a high value on maintaining the integrity and security of the data we hold in our systems," the district said in a statement.
Other larger school districts have been targets of cybersecurity threats in recent months.
San Diego Unified notified parents of a threat at the beginning of December, while Los Angeles Unified dealt with a ransomware attack in early September.
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