A cyberattack that disrupted a classroom platform forced multiple North Texas school districts to scramble for backup plans during final exam season.
Schools and universities across the Dallas-Fort Worth area reportedly spent Thursday adjusting assignments, exams, and communication systems after a reported hack affecting Canvas, a widely used online learning platform relied on by thousands of educational institutions nationwide, according to local officials and statements cited by WFAA.
Southern Methodist University officials in Dallas told students that final exams affected by the outage would be rescheduled to Sunday, May 10, with the same locations and start times.
University of North Texas officials said faculty and students would “discuss how to manage pending assignments, any final exams, grades, etc.,” per WFAA.
Baylor University officials put out a similar statement. Baylor’s official X account wrote on May 7, “With Canvas down at the national level, Baylor University will delay final exams tomorrow (Friday, May 8, 2026).” The message included an attached statement from Provost Nancy Brickhouse that directed students not to touch their class materials, even if Canvas came back online, until directed by the university.
NOTICE: With Canvas down at the national level, Baylor University will delay final exams tomorrow (Friday, May 8, 2026).
More details:https://t.co/dsEROoisW6
— Baylor University (@Baylor) May 8, 2026
Several North Texas school districts also reportedly activated contingency plans as teachers and administrators worked around the disruption.
Arlington ISD administrators advised educators to use alternate methods for instructional delivery and communication until service was restored. Rockwall ISD administrators said there was no indication district data had been compromised, but confirmed Canvas would remain unavailable to students, staff, and parents during the outage. Allen ISD, Northwest ISD, and Keller ISD officials similarly told families and staff to prepare for adjustments in the event of no access to the platform.
Cleburne ISD‘s Instagram account stated in a post that the district was “working with Canvas representatives to gather more information and determine any potential impact to our systems or users.”
Canvas is used by more than 7,000 educational systems globally, including roughly 41% of higher education institutions in the United States, according to figures cited by WFAA. By late Thursday evening, most users appeared to regain access to the platform, according to the station’s reporting.
The disruption also renewed attention on cybersecurity concerns within North Texas education systems, including at SMU, which has publicly invested in cybersecurity education and research for more than a decade.
In 2013, SMU announced the hiring of former National Security Agency research director Dr. Frederick Chang as Distinguished Chair in Cyber Security and professor in the university’s Lyle School of Engineering, according to CBS Texas.
During his introduction at the university, Chang said, “I had a front row seat with a view into what some of the most sophisticated adversaries would like to do to the U.S.”
Chang also warned at the time that cybersecurity efforts often lag behind attackers.
“The field today is very reactive and after the fact, and we need to develop programs and thinking to get ahead of the problem,” Chang told CBS Texas in 2013.
An online Boston College biography for Chang now indicates that he is a “Professor Emeritus” at SMU and a “Visiting Scholar in the Department of Computer Science at Boston College.”
The latest outage follows other recent cybersecurity incidents involving North Texas school systems.
In January 2025, Dallas ISD disclosed that a PowerSchool breach compromised the sensitive personal information of students and staff, according to prior reporting by The Dallas Express.
Dallas ISD said in a letter to parents at the time that PowerSchool had engaged cybersecurity response teams and federal officials after discovering the breach. The district also said no passwords were accessed, while PowerSchool reportedly offered credit monitoring and identity protection services to affected individuals.
“The data that was compromised was significant, and besides just names, it included personal information… Power School is now on the front end and fixing their security issues that allowed this to happen in the first place,” Principal Consultant Martin Yarborough of Martin Yarborough and Associates said at the time, per WFAA.
The Canvas-related disruption did not immediately include public confirmation that North Texas student or employee data had been compromised. Several districts specifically stated they had no evidence that their systems or information were directly affected.
