Bloomfield Hills High School students hack system to change grades, refund lunch purchases

School district working with law enforcement officials after hack

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. – Several Bloomfield Hills High School students are in some big trouble at the end of the school year.

The district said the students hacked into its student information system to tweak grades and more.

School leaders said the hackers changed grades and attendance records and refunded lunch purchases.

“Well, it’s always disappointing when you find out that your students have done something  that you don’t teach and is not a part of your core values and the society core values, and my first reaction was to be offended by that,” Superintendent Robert Glass said.

Glass sent an e-mail out to inform the school district about what had happened and how. Since then, the district has been able to identify the students behind the hack.

“One of our employees who uses the system noticed something unusual upon logging in and then asked some questions and referred it to our help desk, and they started digging and found out what was going on," Glass said.

Glass said, due to privacy laws, the district cannot release the names of the students involved, but he said, “We wanted to be proactive and let people know what we knew, what we were doing about it, to give them an aura of stability, so their minds weren’t filling in the blanks. We owe it to them, to make things right with everyone."

The students haven’t received a punishment for what they did, but Glass said it is a federal crime and the district is working with law enforcement officials.