UPDATE: Springfield Public Schools will remain closed on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026.
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A three-day weekend for Springfield Public Schools students turned into four, after a security breach led to the cancellation of classes Tuesday.
"School was canceled today out of an abundance of caution," Superintendent Sonia Dinnall told reporters at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. "We are restoring our ability to access key systems, such as the medical information for our students, transportation systems, other systems of that nature. We are in very good shape to move forward to ensure that the well-being and the safety of our children will be fully intact as we open the doors again."
In a statement originally posted Monday, Dinnall said the "scope and size of the breach remains under investigation," and that canceling school would allow the district to better address the issue.
It led to 23,500 students getting an extra day off, catching families off-guard as SPS officials continued to investigate and, in some cases, shift to non-district municipal buildings as phone service and other technologies remained down.
SPS staff and students were also advised to stay away from district-issued laptops and internal network systems "until further information is known,” Dinnall said.
In an interview with WAMC, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno indicated SPS and the city had been working to address the incident since at least Friday.
SPS Chief Information Officer Robert St. Lawrence later said his team detected “malicious traffic” targeting the district a week ago. Initial protocols were followed, he said, allowing for some of the "cyber incident" to be addressed, though not fully and not in time for the end of the Labor Day weekend.
"Shame on these individuals that want to cause havoc, especially to students," Sarno said.
During Tuesday's press conference, school and city officials announced some systems, such as the district’s robocall technology, were coming back online, though an exact timeline was not given.
It was also not clear if class would be canceled again on Wednesday.* Springfield Assistant Superintendent Jose Escribano said a decision would be made soon.
In the meantime, efforts to install backup systems in classrooms were underway.
Officials have not said whether or not any student or staff data was compromised or potentially held for ransom, as in last year’s nationwide PowerSchool Student Information System hack. That incident affected millions of students across the country, including SPS.
Coincidentally, third-party platforms and software appeared to be largely unaffected by this most recent hack, Dinnall and others said. That includes Edia, a digital attendance tool the district rolled out at the start of the school year, which also allows SPS to text parents en masse.
According to Escribano, some 14,000 text messages were sent on Labor Day amid news of Tuesday’s closure.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as they become available.
* Since the initial airing of this story, the office of Mayor Domenic Sarno announced SPS will remain closed on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026.
In an update Tuesday night, the school district also indicated only "minor intermittent disruptions" were detected by SPS on Sept. 1, and that "those disruptions elevated to malicious cyber traffic on Saturday evening."
