NC public schools have been hit with a major data breach of teachers’ and students’ personal information. A hacker attacked the PowerSchool information system that schools use to track data on student enrollment, grades, health and attendance.
PowerSchool is the largest provider of cloud-based education software for K-12 schools in the U.S., according to its website. The attack occurred Dec. 28. On Tuesday, PowerSchool notified affected customers, including individual schools and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
Vanessa Wrenn, chief information officer for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, briefed the State Board of Education on the issue Wednesday morning. Wrenn said PowerSchool says the compromised data has been secured and deleted.
“I want to stress this one point: no actions by our schools or no actions by DPI could have prevented this incident from happening. As a matter of fact, this is a global incident,” Wrenn told the board.
According to online media reports, the hacker extorted PowerSchool for money in exchange for not leaking the data, which included personal information of students and teachers, possibly even social security numbers.
“We take student and teacher data privacy very seriously, and we’ll continue to provide supports and updates as they become available,” Wrenn said. “Our schools do not need to take any technical action, because we have proven that the secure systems are now in place.”
Wrenn said PowerSchool is working with law enforcement to monitor the internet and dark web for any of the data.
“We are currently analyzing the entire North Carolina impact, and we will get a better understanding as this data becomes available to us,” Wrenn said.
Schools report they don’t have the funds to keep providing student Chromebooks
The State Board of Education also received an update Wednesday on the long-term sustainability of Chromebooks and other personal devices schools across the state purchased with federal relief funds during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Right now, all 115 North Carolina public school districts and three out of four charter schools report that every one of their students has access to a personal device.
“That student device rate ratio … represents significant growth prior to COVID,” said Ashley McBride, a digital learning initiative consultant to DPI.
In 2018, only eight school districts provided a device for every student, and in June 2019, only fifteen school districts did.
Federal COVID-19 relief funding fueled an explosion of computer access at public schools, as schools scrambled to put Chromebooks in the hands of students who needed them to access remote classes at the height of the pandemic.
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But based on an annual survey conducted last June, 82 of 115 school districts and nearly half of charter schools and lab schools said they don’t have the funding to maintain those devices. The federal funding that fueled that growth has now expired.
DPI consultants recommend that the department explore ways to find funding to allow schools to refresh their devices every four years. McBride did not have data immediately available on how much that recommendation would cost.
State law now allows public schools to provide remote learning days as an alternative to closing for bad weather. Heather Smith, the 2024 North Carolina Teacher of the Year, noted that personal devices are necessary for students to attend class when schools hold “e-learning days.”
‘It’s no longer an extra for kids to get computer time,” said 2023 North Carolina Teacher of the Year Kimberly Jones. “It is a requirement for them to be prepared to be active global citizens in the 21st century.”
