Local School Districts Impacted by Data Breach

By Gordon Hopkins PowerSchool, a software vendor that provides the Student Information System (SIS) for schools throughout Nebraska and the country, including several local schools, suffered a cybersecurity breach last month. Fairbury Public Schools, Diller Odell Schools, Meridian Public Schools, Thayer Central, Southern District Schools and Wilber-Clatonia all use PowerSchool.According to PowerSchool, the taken data primarily includes parent and student contact information, with data elements such as name and address information. Across their customer base, PowerSchool has determined that for a portion of individuals, some Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as medical information, was impacted. PowerSchool is working to complete their investigation and determine whether PII belonging to students was included. More than half of the school districts across Nebraska use PowerSchool as their SIS. A statement from PowerSchool indicates the breach was discovered December 28, 2024, “As soon as we learned of the potential incident, we immediately engaged our cybersecurity response protocols and mobilized a cross-functional response team, including senior leadership and third-party cybersecurity experts. We have also informed law enforcement.”PowerSchool states there is no evidence of malware or continued unauthorized activity, “We have also deactivated the compromised credential and restricted all access to the affected portal. Lastly, we have conducted a full password reset and further tightened password and access control for all PowerSource customer support portal accounts.” FJN reached out to local schools, not all responded as of press time.Randy Kort, Superintendent of Meridian Public Schools, told FJN he was aware of the issue and working with PowerSchool. Southern District Schools in Wymore issued a statement on Friday, “On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, PowerSchool informed our leadership team that they experienced a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain PowerSchool SIS customer data. Unfortunately, they have confirmed that the information belongs to some of Southern School District’s families and educators.”Superintendent Dr. Chris Prososki wrote, “Just a little over two years ago, Southern updated our enrollment forms, and one of the items that we took off of the enrollment forms was requesting for Social Security numbers. In addition, we went ahead and took out all of the Social Security numbers for both students and staff members in PowerSchool. We knew it wasn’t a matter of if our SIS would be hacked, but a matter of when our SIS would be hacked. You can rest assured that your child’s Social Security number was not compromised.” Also impacted was Diller-Odell Schools. Superintendent Mike Meyerle advised FJN, “We do use Powerschool. We are waiting on more info from Powerschool on the matter. Will release a statement once we have some more info.” Tri County Superintendent Randy Schlueter wrote in a recent statement, “PowerSchool has told us the situation has been contained and they have taken actions to prevent the information from being used. PowerSchool has reassured Tri County that information has not shared outside of the breach.”This is a developing story. As of press time, FJN has not heard back from Fairbury Public Schools, Thayer Central Public Schools, Wilber-Clatonia Public Schools. Look for a possible update on the story in the Wednesday, January 15, 2025 edition of FJN.

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