The Blanco Independent School District superintendent was left unsettled, but determined, after a public livestreamed meeting with parents and some students was hacked by an unknown person who indirectly threatened the district’s schools.

The town hall meeting on Zoom, a remote teleconferencing app, took place on Aug. 4 and was meant to give Superintendent Clay Rosenbaum a chance to unveil his back-to-school plan.

“It wasn’t long into the meeting, when I had started my presentation, that someone took over the screen and started typing,” he said. “It didn’t take me long to realize (something was wrong)...the tech coordinator and I were trying to figure out how to stop it. I took my screen down but then the person connected into the meeting through a voice function. I tried to mute them but they were able to keep talking, so I knew then that the person had hacked in. I just ended the meeting.”

Rosenbaum said there was profanity and veiled threats toward the district’s school campuses.

“He made a comment about how he knew where the schools are, and that is unnerving,” Rosenbaum said. “We’re going to make sure that we do everything we can to figure out who did this and prosecute. We’ll continue to monitor our campuses and keep them safe.”

He estimated that the entire incident lasted about a minute.

The person was not able to hack into the district’s server or otherwise compromise district data, a police official said.

A video has since been sent out to parents with Rosenbaum’s presentation. A link to the video can be found on the district’s website and Facebook page.

“It didn’t set us back at all.”

Police investigating

The Blanco Police Department is the lead investigating agency.

“Someone entered the app and disrupted the meeting, but no motive has been established,” said Blanco Police Chief Scott Rubin. “This is an ongoing investigation and I would like to thank BISD for their cooperation. If anyone has additional information that may assist us in our investigation please contact the Blanco Police Department.”

Police were not able to release more information, citing the ongoing investigation.

Rosenbaum said he hopes that the hacker was not someone in the Blanco community.

“It’s really unfortunate,” he said. “It makes me sick to my stomach. But it has motivated me to make sure we do this right.”