Oak Harbor School District is investigating a student’s hacking of staff and fellow students’ email accounts to determine if it is related to a server failure in recent weeks, according to the district’s communications coordinator.

District spokeswoman Kellie Tormey said staff members first realized that something was awry on Feb. 19 when online accounts of some staff members and students at the high school and middle schools were suddenly inaccessible.

Officials investigated and discovered that a boy at the high school obtained passwords for certain staff members accounts, gained unauthorized access to a secure area of the network and intentionally shut down accounts belonging to select students and staff members, she said.

The student admitted to some of the violations and the district is pursuing appropriate discipline, Tormey said.

Not long after the incident, the district experienced a failure of the “exchange server,” which shut down email service for the district.

The server has since been rebuilt with help from Microsoft.

Tormey said officials don’t yet know if the two incidents are related.