Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported an outage affecting all companies using AWS services on Oct. 20, impacting all HISD Canvas platforms district-wide and educational platforms nationwide.

HISD is a part of AWS’s Champion Program, a program that supports organizations and individuals with digital computing, known as the Region 4 Education Service Center. The center represents more than 1.2 million students across 42 districts in Texas. A 2024 statistic said that the AWS cloud service platform is used by over 30% of the global market.

Principal Niggli announced the Canvas shutdown this morning over the speakers to teachers, staff and students.

“I first heard it went out at [12 or 7 o’clock] this morning,” Niggli said. “Just from what I read, Amazon said the recovery is already happening, and that the longest outage they’ve ever had was five hours.”

College Counselor Bethany Berhanu said the Canvas shutdown made meeting with students harder. Berhanu’s job involves pulling transcripts and assisting students in the college application process.

“It’s affected my meetings with students because I can’t pull up their information,” Berhanu said. “They come in with questions about certain things, and I can’t pull up their information, so it’s kind of challenging.”

Berhanu understood the situation despite the sudden change and inconvenience.

“I would have liked to have been better informed about it, but I know there’s a lot of things going on in school, so I understand,” Berhanu said. “It’s unfortunate, but understandable, because there’s a lot of other things going on.”

Junior Valeria Mejia said the shutdown didn’t cause students to be concerned right away but eventually grew frustrated as the day continued.

“I was in On-Ramps Chemistry and a little stressed because Canvas was down,” Mejia said. “We had a module to do, [but now we couldn’t do it]. I feel stressed because I can’t do my work right now.”

The outage lasted until 5:01 p.m. Central Standard Time. For more information on the status of the shutdown, check out the Amazon Web Services.