FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WAKE COUNTY STUDENTS, TEACHERS UNITED IN DISAPPOINTMENT FOLLOWING CANVAS DATA BREACH

Joint Statement from the Students and Faculty of the Wake County Public School System

Issued May 7, 2026

It is with heavy hearts and a shared sense of loss that the students and teachers of Wake County Public School System come together today to address the Canvas Data Breach, which has rendered the statewide learning management system functionally compromised during the final weeks of the academic year, a period we acknowledge was already not going great.

We are devastated.

Among our students, the mood is one of profound loss. One member of our student body, who asked to be identified as “Shiny Hunter,” wishes to share the following: “I had so much I was planning to turn in. There were assignments I was absolutely going to submit, and now, with everything going on, I just don’t see how.”

Our faculty share this anguish. One veteran educator wishes to state for the record: “The unit projects have been sitting in my bag since March 5th, well before the April 25th breach. I want to be clear that I was planning to submit my grades on April 26th.”

We wish to acknowledge that this is the second major breach affecting NC student data in less than two years, following the PowerSchool hack of December 2024, which resulted in the company paying a ransom, watching a video of the hacker deleting the data, and declaring the matter resolved. NC schools subsequently moved their data to a new system, which has now also been breached. We have found this process to be very consistent.

What strikes us most is the unprecedented solidarity this moment has produced. Students cannot submit work. Teachers cannot enter grades. We are, for perhaps the first time, truly unified in our circumstances.

A candlelight vigil for unsubmitted assignments is scheduled for Thursday evening in the Leesville Road High School parking lot. Attendance is optional and cannot be graded.

In closing:

We remain committed to the educational mission of Wake County Public Schools and look forward to a full investigation, the results of which will be available in a report no earlier than August, at which point the 2025-26 school year will have ended.

We are, as always, in this together.

Signed,

THE STUDENTS AND FACULTY OF WAKE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

(Collectively, pending individual verification)

This press release was submitted via Canvas.