Santa Fe ISD trustees heard an update from district technology and facilities staff about a cyber security incident that disrupted services earlier in the week and affected testing and building systems.

The district’s IT staff summarized steps taken after the incident began on Monday, saying they disconnected services, contacted vendors and insurance, and established secure connections with support vendors. "We realized it was bigger than we thought," one staff member reported, outlining a staged restoration plan that district staff said should allow more systems to come back online within “a couple days” after restoration work begins.

District staff said several user-facing services have already been restored: phone service at all campuses (with voicemail still unavailable), the public address system (with schedule changes disabled), door access, the visitor management system and student devices. Staff said student internet was restored before STAAR testing so tests could proceed and that teachers are reconnecting student devices.

Facilities staff described operational impacts from the network outage. Automation systems that normally manage building schedules could not be accessed remotely because of the network disruption, so some systems have been left in the same state since the incident and certain equipment is being switched on and off manually each day. Staff warned this will raise electricity use until automated controls are restored.

Trustees thanked IT and facilities personnel for extended efforts to maintain services and support testing during the outage. Facilities staff also said they are coordinating with vendors and FEMA on planned building repairs and reroofing projects; they plan to accept bids and schedule work once specifications are finalized.

The district did not provide a firm cause for the incident or name any affected vendor by contract; staff said restoration work is proceeding with external support and that more detailed updates will be provided as systems are verified and cleared.

Less critical details: trustees and staff made several lighthearted comments during the update and recognized the extra hours put in by IT and facilities teams.