LAKE STEVENS, Wash. – Officials at Sunnycrest Elementary School are punishing two third-grade students who accessed porn on school computers due to a flaw in the district’s internet filtering software.

Lake Stevens school district spokeswoman Jamie Taylor told King 5 the students were suspended for viewing porn images on school supplied laptops during class and sharing the images with other students. In a letter sent home to parents, district officials blamed the issue on a fault in the district’s internet filtering software, but are standing behind the punishment nonetheless.

“We’re writing to notify you about an extremely unfortunate situation that occurred at Sunnycrest. During class, a third-grade student searched for, and was able to access explicit sexual images on a district computer. She then shared those images with several of her classmates. Appropriate disciplinary action was taken,” the letter read, according to Fox Q 13.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“Typically, images of this nature would be blocked by our filtering software. Lake Stevens School District subscribes to a filtering software that blocks certain ‘classifications’ for all users, including: pornography; gambling; obscenities; adult content; hate/violence; and URL shorteners. In this instance, the images were searchable and visible due to a change in the search engine that had not been updated by the filtering software company.

“Once staff members became aware of the situation, Information Technology technicians were immediately notified and all student computer use at Sunnycrest is suspended until our investigation is complete. Additionally, the filter is being tested on a district-wide basis to ensure that all students are protected from explicit content.”

Taylor told King 5 the district suspended the students because they did not immediately notify their teacher when they discovered the explicit images.

Austin Maxwell, stepfather of one of the suspended students, doesn’t believe the punishment is fair.

His 8-year-old daughter loaded the search words into the computer at the urging of another student, he said, and he found no evidence of similar searches on the family’s home computer.

“This is not a child you would expect would ever be doing anything like this,” Maxwell said. “… I came home and I checked the history and at home there’s nothing on there.”

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“We never in the world would have thought she was accessing what she was accessing on the school’s equipment,” he said.

The incident prompted mixed reactions online.

“For once, just once, I’d like the parents to take some responsibility for their kids,” Sally Peterson posted to Fox Q 13. “Rushing to blame this on the school district is unconstructive and petty.”

Poster Smarterthanyou disagreed.

“What the hell do you think children do? ‘Oh look boobs lets share with my friends this is funny,’” Smarterthanyou wrote. “If anyone is at fault it’s the information technology departments for not doing their job by locking down the systems.

“The kids shouldn’t suffer anything but a parent-teacher conference. Quit blaming parents for something they have absolutely no control over.”