After experiencing a ransomware attack in June, Evanston Township High School District 202 is adapting to life with a series of technological changes.
While the school began recovering from the attack during the summer, senior Sora Criz spent hours volunteering at ChromeZone, ETHS’ student-led laptop repair and technology support site. There, Criz and other students repaired security flaws and reset passwords ahead of the first day of school.
“A lot of people were terrified,” Criz said.
The ransomware attack disabled phone lines, internet access and public address systems, and forced the school to close for two days, according to an email sent to students and families following the incident.
The school is collaborating with the FBI to investigate the incident, Superintendent Marcus Campbell wrote in an email to students and families following the attack. However, no details about a possible motive, the hackers’ entry point or an identified threat group have been made public. Despite this, Criz said they speculate that a phishing email could’ve helped the attacker gain access to the school’s systems.
“I was told by a few of the higher-ups that some administrator, anonymous to me, got their account breached,” Criz said. “Worst comes to worst, it could’ve been just a simple phishing scam that turned into something this big. That’s why some of these bait emails are so important to look out for.”
ETHS reopened on June 10 after repairs and testing of vital safety systems.
However, phone services remained unavailable for 16 more days, and administrators continued tweaking the school’s internet services afterward.
“No one was really sure what to anticipate because everything was happening so quickly,” said ETHS senior and District 202 Board Student Representative Olin Wilson-Thomas. “There was so much that was unknown.”
ETHS required reimaging of staff laptops, installations of new antivirus agents and password resets for student and faculty Google accounts to erase any malware remnants.
The recovery efforts required ChromeZone volunteers to work overtime installing new software to prevent any malware attacks.
“Every day, there was always something,” said ChromeZone Student Technology Coordinator Dora Bollinger. “There was mainly just an overflow of people having to gain new access back into their technology. So every day it was resetting kids’ passwords and trying to help them come up with newer and better ways.”
The school switched from its old school software platform, PowerSchool, to Infinite Campus. Although administrators confirmed ETHS had weighed the possibility of making the switch years ago, the ransomware attack accelerated the transition from multiple years to a single summer.
“I think it was the perfect move,” Bollinger said. “The program is very robust, and it could do a lot that we’re all still trying to learn.
Although ETHS’ first day of class was on schedule, Campbell acknowledged at a September board meeting that the district still had work to do. Community members said ETHS is struggling with internet reception on personal devices. Seniors, who need to access transcripts to complete college applications and apply for scholarships, have said the process can be cumbersome due to the school’s database issues.
Criz said that the school also stopped producing physical IDs this school year, making it harder for new freshmen without phones or those who can’t access their IDs through Infinite Campus to enter the school buildings.
Staff only learned ETHS would be switching to Infinite Campus a month before school started. Some educators also found it difficult to adapt to the new system.
“There’s just the initial challenge of learning a new system and how the interface works, but there’s so much information that goes into the student system,” said ETHS history teacher and Evanston Teachers’ Council President Rick Cardis. “There’s the grade book. There’s any sort of IEP or 504 accommodations, medical alerts, how we contact families or interact with discipline issues.”
The June breach was not the first cyberattack at Evanston schools. Cybercriminals defrauded ETHS of $48,570 in a 2020 data breach, while a 2025 data breach of PowerSchool affected Evanston/Skokie District 65.
Moving forward, ETHS administrators, faculty and students feel that another future ransomware attack is unlikely.
“A lot of people don’t understand how the little things we take for granted were compromised. And I think more people are learning that this was a big deal,” Bollinger said. “I think a lot of people are learning better ways to be cybersecurity savvy. That’s another reason I don’t think it’s going to happen again here.”
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