At a press conference, Mayor Dominic Sarno said the attack was classified as "level 4" which means "severe." Schools were closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and officials said they could be closed longer for the safety of students.
WBUR · WBUR · September 9, 2026
Springfield, Massachusetts, city leaders said Tuesday afternoon they are still working on resolving a major cyber incident that shut down school Tuesday , Wednesday and possibly longer.
At a press conference, Mayor Dominic Sarno said the attack was classified as "level 4" which means "severe." He would not explain exactly what happened because he said the investigation is ongoing.
School officials said they first detected "malicious traffic" Tuesday, Sept. 1, but they only notified families on Friday.
Schools were closed Tuesday and Wednesday, and officials said they could be closed longer for the safety of students. That's because the district can't access student health records and transportation and food-related information.
The district will continue to use social media posts and text messages to communicate with the school community because they can't use email.
Springfield School Department's Technology Director, Robert St. Lawrence, said once the threat was clear, staff immediately initiated a cyber incident response plan.
"Primarily what we are doing is identifying, looking to contain and then eradicate the threats that we are seeing," he said. "So after we have confirmation of that, moving towards a restoration of services."
Springfield School Superintendent Dr. Sonia Dinnall said going forward, teachers are coming up with workarounds while they can't access the computer system.
"We have highly skilled educators and teachers who are able to instruct without technology," she said.
The school department is asking students and families not to use any school laptops for fear of spreading the malware.
Springfield city government was not hit by the same incident, Sarno said. He then proceeded to knock on the wood podium.
This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by New England Public Media.