UPDATE: Information about inappropriate emails

Posted January 1, 2021

UPDATE: Jan. 6, 2021

The UGDSB is very appreciative of everyone’s patience as we worked through the clean-up of the mass distribution of emails from last week.  The clean-up process has been completed and students are now able to access their Gmail through their student portal once again.  We regret the disruption to service and the nature of the initial event and have taken significant additional steps to ensure the safety of our email platform.


Jan. 4, 2021

The board continues to make progress on cleaning up student email accounts and once this process is complete will reopen student Gmail accounts. As a reminder, students continue to have access to their Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Chat and all other features in their UGCloud accounts to support remote learning.

The board continues to investigate the root cause of this incident, to determine why the board’s internal restrictions that prevent students from sending emails to groups did not work, and once that is determined will reinstate measures and monitor to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Several parents/guardians have asked about next steps regarding students who sent emails containing inappropriate language. Some students who breached our code of conduct have had their information forwarded to school principals, who will follow up with the students and their families this week.

We are very sorry for the upset and inconvenience this has caused to students and families. We take this very seriously and are taking steps to investigate the root cause of this issue and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.


January 3, 2021

The following is an update on addressing the mass distribution of inappropriate emails from New Year’s Eve.

The process of continuing to delete these emails from all student accounts is continuing and expected to run into this week. Please note that students will not have access to their Gmail accounts while the cleanup process continues. We will provide an update when the process is complete.

Students will still be able to access Google Classroom and all other features in their UGCloud accounts to support remote learning.

Thank you for your patience while this work continues.


January 1, 2021

The Upper Grand DSB is aware of a UGDSB student email sent on Thursday night, which went to thousands of our students. Unfortunately, many of the replies to the original post contained inappropriate language.

This was not the result of a computer virus or hack, but of individuals sending inappropriate content to a group list.

The UGDSB apologizes for the upset these emails have caused. Most students who received them would have no connection to the original sender.

We are currently working to resolve the issue and will continue to investigate.

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