Brevard Schools Disables Canvas After Cyberattack; Parents Told to Watch for Phishing
Brevard Public Schools shut off student access to Canvas this week after Instructure, the company that owns the platform, confirmed a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor between May 1 and May 6. The criminal group calling itself ShinyHunters claims data on roughly 275 million users across thousands of institutions, a figure Instructure has not confirmed. Three Space Coast institutions are in the affected pool: Brevard Public Schools, Florida Tech, and Eastern Florida State College. The district said by email that “Communication has been shared with all families and staff” and that “no indication that sensitive student information has been compromised.”
Instructure’s chief information security officer, Steve Proud, said in a May 2 status update that the data involved is limited to “names, email addresses, and student ID numbers, as well as messages among users.” No passwords, no dates of birth, no government IDs, and no financial records have been confirmed taken. Instructure issued its final public status update on May 6 and said the company is now communicating directly with impacted customers rather than publishing a victim list. That is why confirmation of the BPS exposure came from the district itself, not a public Instructure registry.
The hackers set a ransom deadline of Tuesday, May 12. Whether ShinyHunters publishes any data on or after that date is unknown as of publication. Florida law (F.S. 282.318(8)) requires school districts to report cybersecurity incidents at level 3 through 5 to the Florida Cybersecurity Operations Center within 12 hours of discovery, with an after-action report due within a week of remediation. Whether BPS has filed that report is not publicly verified. The Florida Cybersecurity Operations Center incident portal is not searchable by the public.
The advice for parents is the same regardless of what happens Tuesday. Watch for phishing. Anything that looks like it came from Canvas, Brevard Public Schools, or a teacher should be checked at the sender address before any link is clicked. Suspicious mail can be forwarded to info@instructure.com. The 2021 BPS email-account breach, which exposed roughly 10,000 people, taught the district how a single phishing wave can compound a breach already in progress. Treat anything that arrives this week as suspect until the source is confirmed.
Palm Bay and Brevard Both Under Burn Bans as Drought Index Nears Critical Level
Palm Bay and Brevard County both issued burn bans inside a 48-hour window. Palm Bay enacted its own ban May 7. Brevard County followed May 8, citing the Keetch-Byram Drought Index at 485 on a scale of 800 and stating that a 2017 county ordinance would have automatically triggered the ban once the index reached 500, anticipated within the next 24 hours. The bans cover open burning, bonfires, campfires, trash burning, and outdoor incineration. Barbecue grills, state-authorized prescribed burns, and permitted public fireworks are exempt. The Palm Bay Fire Marshal’s Office and the Brevard County Public Information Office can answer questions about specific activities.
There were no new fires inside the Compound between May 4 and May 9. The bans are precautionary, not reactive. The serial-arson investigation at the Compound stays open. No arrest has been made, no charges have been filed, and no suspect has been publicly identified. Florida Forest Service bulldozers remain staged on the property as a forward measure.
Florida Forest Service spokesperson Cliff Frazier framed the underlying risk in historical terms in an interview with MyNews13 reporter Greg Pallone on May 1. “All it takes is just one spark, then we are back to 1998, catastrophic wildfires, especially with all that dry vegetation.” The 1998 reference is to the wildfire season that burned hundreds of thousands of acres across all 67 Florida counties and destroyed hundreds of homes. The bulldozer staging and the burn bans together describe a system that is preparing for a worst case rather than reacting to one.
Separate from the Compound serial fires, Palm Bay Police arrested Marc Hoover after he set a 5-acre brush fire near a homeless encampment and was quoted as saying “y’all gonna burn.” Hoover is charged separately. He is not a suspect in the Compound investigation. The American Lung Association’s 2026 State of the Air report ranked the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro area among the cleanest in the country for ozone pollution, with an A grade and zero days of unhealthy ozone air, and ranked the same metro 23rd nationally for year-round particle pollution. The same metro now sits under a dual burn ban while serial arson burns the Compound.
Wastewater Plant Targets June 22 for First Flow; City and Surety Reach In-Principle Agreement
Utilities Director Gabriel Bowden told the City Council on May 7 that the South Regional Wastewater Reclamation Facility is targeting June 22 for first flow acceptance. Bowden said the city and the surety company reached an in-principle agreement on May 5, and the surety has paid out more than $2 million in payment bonds to subcontractors so far. Cathcart Construction has been on site since April 20 working site safety, lift-station repair, road base, and grading. The May 5 agreement allows the city to keep work moving while a signed surety document is finalized.
“From this Tuesday, when we talked with assurity and got the green light, to June 22nd will be about 48 days. So we’ll be working very hard to make that happen,” Bowden said. The deficiency list found at the plant has grown from 86 items on initial evaluation to roughly 90. Of those, 46 are classed as high-priority items that must be resolved before startup. Eleven more must be addressed at startup. Thirty-two low-priority items can be addressed after the plant is online. The Kubota membrane headworks required teardown and rebuild rather than repair and is expected to be ready the week of June 8.
City Manager Matthew Morton framed the transparency context at the same meeting. “We committed to updating you at every council meeting and also weekly as to the status of the WRF.” The next status update is scheduled for the May 21 Regular Council Meeting, two weeks from the May 7 presentation. The signed surety agreement, the final Cathcart site-work figures, and the May 11 milestone work on pipe coatings, grate repairs, Gorman pump repairs, and manhole lining are the items council and the public should expect on the May 21 agenda. The plant’s April 17 emergency-procurement context remains the foundation for everything happening now.
Development Desk
The city’s permit system logged 341 permits filed between Saturday May 2 and Saturday May 9. Residential building permits dominated with 109 records, public works permits accounted for 70, and new-construction subtype came in at 58. The top filers by count were Lennar Homes with 23, D.R. Horton with 16, Adams Homes of Northwest Florida with 14, Christopher Alan Homes with 12, and Maronda Homes with 7. Dollar valuations are not visible in the citizen-tier export.
Emerald Lakes Phase 2A at St. Johns Heritage Parkway SE moved into active construction. Veteran Construction Solutions LLC filed two commercial building permits (BL26-05225 and BL26-05292) at the Emerald Lakes 414602 address, and a Phase 2A SW bond submission (BOND26-00017) landed in the same window. A separate commercial building permit (BL26-05261) opened a tenant improvement at 1415 Sportsman Lane NE for Back Nine Golf, the same Sportsman Lane corridor that hosts the Sonic Automotive and SpaceCoast Harley-Davidson site at 1440 Sportsman Lane NE.
New in Palm Bay this week. Two used-car dealerships filed business tax receipts in the same seven-day window: Kuruma Imports LLC on Wilhelmina Court NE and D’Yireh Auto Sales LLC on Babcock Street NE. Two used-car BTRs in one week is a cluster signal. Southern Gunite Inc. opened a swimming-pool gunite contractor footprint on Robert J Conlan Boulevard NE in the industrial corridor. A Magic World Family Child Care LLC opened a licensed family daycare on Kanabec Avenue NW. Healing Hands Home Health Care LLC opened a non-medical home-care service on Montana Avenue SE.
Council and Civic Desk
City Council holds two back-to-back sessions Wednesday, May 13. A Special Meeting at 4 PM consists of four sealed attorney-client litigation strategy sessions on civil cases (Dugan v. City of Palm Bay, Vaughn v. City of Palm Bay, Tillman v. City of Palm Bay, and Cassulis v. City of Palm Bay). The session is closed to the public under F.S. 286.011(8) and contains no consent items and no ordinances. The 6 PM Workshop is the formal kickoff of the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget cycle. The agenda has a single item: “Discussion of the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget.” It is the opening conversation of the cycle. Decisions land later.
That budget cycle opens with weight already on the ledger. On May 7, Council approved Ordinances 2026-10 and 2026-11 (the Millrose FLUM and the Palm Vista Everlands West PUD preliminary plan) on a 3-2 vote. Councilmembers Donny Felix Johnson and Chandler Hammer voted no. The approved project covers 1,198 acres at St. Johns Heritage Parkway NW and the Melbourne-Tillman Water Control District Canal #1, with 2,360 residential units and 145,000 square feet of non-residential development. Staff acknowledged at the dais that 12 additional sworn officers and a Fire Station 8 quint apparatus would be needed to serve the development. Those positions and that apparatus are unfunded as of the budget workshop’s opening discussion.
During his closing remarks at the May 7 meeting, Councilman Hammer raised a separate concern from the dais. “I was told about some bicycles being stolen from Bayside High School. And I addressed that with our school board member, and she has let me know that Sue Hann’s working on it.” Sue Hann, the former Palm Bay city manager now with Brevard Public Schools, is the staff lead identified as working the response. The school board member Hammer spoke with was not named in his remarks. The Brevard County School Board meets Tuesday, May 12, and that agenda may surface broader school-safety context.
Court Desk: Egler Case Stays in Adult Court
A Brevard circuit judge denied a defense motion on May 8 to send the case of State of Florida v. Julia Grace Egler back to juvenile court. The case stays in adult criminal court, where Egler, now 17, faces two counts of first-degree premeditated murder with a firearm under F.S. 782.04(1)(a)(1)(j). She was 16 at the time of the offense on July 6, 2024. The case carries Brevard County Clerk docket number 05-2024-CF-040873-AXXX-BC. Egler has pleaded not guilty.
Egler is accused in the deaths of her mother, Kelley McCollom, and McCollom’s boyfriend, Matthew Szejnrok, at a Palm Bay home. The Palm Bay Police arrest affidavit, signed by Lt. Virginia Kilmer, cites long-standing conflicts inside the home over Egler’s gender transition and over McCollom’s relationship with Szejnrok, who was 22 at the time of the offense. The same affidavit is the basis for the recorded interrogation now at the center of a separate defense motion to suppress.
Judge Michelle Naberhaus has not yet ruled on the defense’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Defense attorney Michael Pirolo has argued that Palm Bay Police Department’s public release of the recorded interrogation violated Florida juvenile-confession privacy law and created prejudicial pretrial publicity that prevents a fair trial. The defense has until Tuesday, May 26, to file supplemental information supporting the dismissal argument. A separate motion to suppress, filed February 25, 2026, targeting the interrogation recording, also remains pending. The next hearing is Friday, May 15, at 1:30 PM at Moore Justice Center. A Calendar Call, the stage where a trial date is typically set, is on the docket for October 21, 2026. The Bayer is now tracking this case under Litigation, Egler.
Roads and Infrastructure Service Block
Three concurrent infrastructure work events land in the same window. Drivers on Malabar Road and Babcock Street should expect rolling lane shifts. The Florida Power and Light contractor Pike will perform utility construction at seven Palm Bay locations from May 11 through May 22, daily from 9 AM to 3:30 PM, with channelizing devices and FDOT flagging at all sites. The seven addresses are 2173 Redwood Circle (32905), 2276 Spring Creek Circle (32905), 2215 Ladner Road NE (32907), 551 Minor Avenue NE (32907), 1159 Malabar Road SE (32907), 1465 Georgia Street NE (32907), and 5240 Babcock Street SE (32909). Two arterials are in the work plan: Malabar Road SE at the 1159 site and Babcock Street SE at the 5240 site. Questions go to Palm Bay Public Works customer service at (321) 952-3437.
Brightline is performing planned safety-enhancement work at three NE-quadrant rail crossings from May 11 through May 16: NE Hessey Avenue, NE Palm Bay Road, and NE Port Malabar Boulevard. The city characterized the work as minor delays. No full closures are stated. No daily time windows have been published. Northeast-quadrant commuters should plan for short delays at each named crossing across the work week.
The Florida Department of Transportation is running overnight ramp closures on two I-95 interchanges between May 11 and May 15 for paving operations. The Malabar Road northbound on-ramp to I-95 closes nightly from 9 PM to 5 AM, May 11 through May 14. The detour runs north on Babcock Street to Palm Bay Road, west to the I-95 northbound on-ramp. At State Road 50, the southbound off-ramp to SR 50 closes May 13 from 8 PM to 6 AM, and the northbound on-ramp from SR 50 to southbound I-95 closes May 14 from 8 PM to 6 AM. Project information is posted at cflroads.com/project/450729-1 (Malabar/I-95) and cflroads.com/project/450771-1 (SR 50/I-95). The FDOT public information contact is Evelyn Padilla, (321) 451-1397.
Community Calendar
Treats, Beats and Eats lands Friday, May 15, from 5 PM to 8 PM at City Hall, 120 Malabar Road. The event is inside the E5 publish window and is the timeliest calendar item this week. Palm Bay Magnet High School Graduation is Saturday, May 23, at 9 AM at the Palm Bay Magnet stadium. Brevard Public Schools have early release days May 20, 21, and 22 for students taking exams. The Turkey Creek 5K Trail Run is the same Saturday, May 23, at Turkey Creek Sanctuary. Children’s Day Festival runs the same Saturday from 11 AM to 4 PM.
That is the week of May 11 in Palm Bay. Treat any email that looks like Canvas as suspect until the sender address is confirmed. Hold the matches and the lighters. Watch the May 21 council meeting for the next wastewater-plant update. Plan around the road work on Malabar and Babcock and the Brightline crossings in the northeast. Mark Friday for City Hall and Saturday for the Sanctuary.
