This is a little late, bit doesn’t seem to have been noticed here; I saw it only because it found its way into the German news at SPIEGEL ONLINE yesterday. From the 9 April 2015 Tampa Bay Times:
A middle school student who said he was just trying to play a prank on a teacher he didn't like was charged with a cybercrime Wednesday after authorities said he hacked into his school's secure computer network.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has charged Domanik Green, an eighth-grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School, with an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access, a felony. Sheriff Chris Nocco said Thursday that Green logged onto the school's network on March 31 using an administrative-level password without permission. He then changed the background image on a teacher's computer to one showing two men kissing.
How secure was the network? The password was a teacher’s six-letter last name, and Green says that the trick was well-known to students, who used the system to screen-share with their friends. It’s hard to disagree with Eileen Foster, the boy’s mother, who thinks that the administration’s network should have been more secure in the first place.
It’s also hard to disagree with when when she acknowledges that he shouldn’t have done it but thinks that arresting him was a bit much; Sheriff Nocco has no trouble doing so, however.
“Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done,” Nocco said.
Now to be fair, I should point out that one of the computers involved had encrypted 2014 FCAT questions stored on it, and that the school is required to notify the state Department of Education of any possible security breach involving testing information. However, the sheriff and school district officials both say that Green did not access those files.
Nocco added that this should be a warning to other students, who will ‘face the same consequences’ if his department gets evidence that they’ve done the same thing. And he’s not backing down:
“I think, unfortunately, when the story's being told in other (publications), they're not talking about the fact that he committed this crime previously,” Nocco said Monday. “We enforce the law. And if we don't enforce the law, nobody else will.”
Yes, the kid had previously received a three-day suspension for getting into the system without authorization — but the good sheriff seemed quite willing to apply the same hammer to culprits who had not been previously caught, should he find any. And in any case it’s quite a jump from a three-day suspension to a felony charge, even if it is likely that Green won’t actually have to stand trial and will instead participate in some sort of pretrial intervention.
Sheriff Nocco has an answer to that, by the way: it’s the state legislature that classified the crime as a felony, and if people want to change the classification, they should write their lawmakers.
And where does the school district stand? Their spokesperson says that ‘the school district is not going to question the Sheriff's Office in determining the charges. That's their job.’
Added: This report from WTSP has a little more information, and this editorial from Coingreed.com indicates that as of the 22nd Green was still facing charges.