High School Hackers Cancel School With Fake Snow Day

By WLWT/NBC News Channel

TRENTON, OH -- Two Ohio high schoolers are accused of hacking into their school's computer system and canceling school for a snow day.

Michelle Hopkins has the story from Trenton, Ohio.

"Right here where you see the red. That's where the announcement comes out," said Tom York, school superintendent.

The announcement Sunday night read "Edgewood Schools Closed" when it was really just a one-hour delay.

"When we saw that it said 'closed' we immediately looked at ourselves because we thought one of us had pushed the wrong button," said Tom York, school superintendent.

When a cross check of authorized email addresses exposed two that didn't belong, district officials knew then that their web site had been hacked.

"Hundreds of people that were inconvenient by this. Parents who thought that we were closed then found out that we weren't and had made arrangements for their kids," said Tom York, school superintendent.

A big problem for parents and a PR problem for the district -- on blogs like "Trenton Talks."

"This is where we were really just taking a beating," said Tom York, school superintendent.

Slammed for appearing to put out bad information at a critical time. District bosses are taking this case very seriously. The two girls 16 and 17 are expected to be formally charged tomorrow with the hacking incident.

"We will go after these students as tough as we can. It's very important that people feel they can go to our Edgewood web site and get accurate information," said Tom York, school superintendent.

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