Phone service at Evanston Township High School returned Thursday, June 25, ending an 18-day outage that left families and staff without a key communication line during summer school.

The phones went down after a ransomware attack hit District 202's technology systems on Sunday, June 7, forcing the school to close for two days and disrupting internet, email, and computer infrastructure across campus.

Superintendent Marcus Campbell told the ETHS community that while phones are working again, other district systems remain limited. "The process has required rebuilding components of our technology infrastructure," Campbell said. "While we are eager to return to full operation, we will not expedite restoration at the expense of the safety and integrity of our systems."

Email service was restored earlier. But as of Thursday, the district still does not know what personal data, if any, were accessed during the breach. The FBI is assisting in the ongoing investigation, along with outside cybersecurity forensic experts and data breach attorneys the district hired shortly after the attack.

ETHS closed Monday, June 8 and Tuesday, June 9. A scheduled ACT exam was relocated from ETHS to Lane Tech in Chicago on Sunday, June 14. Summer school and sports camps resumed Wednesday, June 10, but students and staff operated without full technology access for weeks.

Campbell said the district aims to have systems fully restored before the new school year begins. No target date has been set. The district's cybersecurity incident page was last updated Thursday, June 25, the same day phones came back online.