The Atascadero Unified School District Board of Trustees Meeting was held on Tuesday night but only lasted 15 minutes before the live stream cut out on Youtube. Wednesday morning, the Atascadero News inquired about the incident, and AUSD Superintendent Tom Butler’s office responded, stating that an unknown source launched a “data attack” on the school district. The AUSD technology shut down the school’s internet connection in order to protect the data. 

The Atascadero News reached out to Superintendent Tom Butler’s office to inquire why the live stream cut out and he released the following statement: 

“Last evening, an outside data attack on Atascadero Unified School District was attempted by an unknown source. When that happened, our District technology shut down our internet connection in order to protect our data. We successfully thwarted the digital attack. However, the shutdown occurred at the start of our regularly scheduled Board of Trustees meeting, and as a result, we were unable to broadcast. The issue was rectified last evening, and the internet connection has been restored.

We apologize to our District families for being unable to broadcast our Board meeting.”

AUSD continued with the meeting offline, excluding public hearings, and will be releasing the minutes online in the near future. The Apr. 20 meeting was set to have school presentations from the Fine Arts Academy and Atascadero Middle School, a review of the District’s goals, business services, and the presentation of a new course (Environmental Science) at Atascadero High School.

A full report of the meeting will follow once the minutes are released. 

The next AUSD Board Meeting is scheduled for May 4, at 7 p.m.