On Wednesday, the weather forecast made closing schools a no brainer, but Cloquet also canceled school Thursday because the district is under seige ... by a computer virus known as malware.

Superintendent Ken Scarbrough sent the following email to school district parents and employees:

"The Cloquet School District will be closed Thursday, March 17th. The district is experiencing severe technical problems, due to an attack from a very bad virus. All servers are down, affecting such systems as food service, email, curriculum, and instruction. Technicians need another day to work on the problem and access computers in all the classrooms. Staff and students should not try to use any school computers tomorrow or log in to any District accounts. We are working hard to maintain the integrity of our system and work on some major repairs. These repairs would be much more difficult, and hard to manage with staff and students using computers and personal devices."

Yvette Maijala, ISD 94 technology coordinator, said the attack compromised network computers and servers "but did not breach sensitive student, staff, or financial data or email."

Maijala said the district is actively taking necessary steps to restore the district's assets back to an operational status.