Parents say kids got email threatening to release personal info after CCSD’s ‘cyber incident’

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - An email Tuesday morning caught some Clark County School District students and their parents off guard. A person writing the email claimed to have personal information on every student and staff member and personal information would be released to the public if the district didn’t pay. The email says Superintendent Jesus Jara and Deputy Superintendent “had been given an option to pay for your privacy and have declined to do so.”

The email went on to say, “I have made one final offer of extension to your school board, if they choose to comply, your information will remain private and copies will be destroyed, if they ignore my offer, your information will be made public. They have 3 days to respond. 5pm Thur 19th,” read the email.

The email says data includes information such as staff phone numbers, home addresses, parent and student contact information, passports, birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, bank statements and other forms of identification of parents registering their children with CCSD, among other items.

Parents tell FOX5 the email looked like it came in from another student but believe it was a fake name.

FOX5 reached out to CCSD about the legitimacy of the email and did not hear back. We also asked CCSD several questions about the cyber incident, but it did not respond to those questions as of Tuesday evening.

One parent says her ninth grade daughter got the email through her CCSD school email address. The mother, who didn’t want to be identified, said her daughter wasn’t able to access CCSD websites in class Tuesday and students couldn’t get into computers at all. She says her fifth grader could not access chrome books and the CCSD website kept crashing.

One teacher told FOX5 student passwords were set to be reset on Tuesday but then the district decided not to do that at his school. He says an email from CCSD indicated access to the Google Workspace would be temporarily limited to the internal CCSD network for up to five days.