On January 7, 2025, PowerSchool notified WS/FCS of a December 2024 security breach that exposed personal data of students, families, and staff. The breach, which affected schools nationwide, has been contained, and PowerSchool believes the data was deleted without being publicly shared.
Last month, the state of North Carolina’s student information system provider, PowerSchool, notified Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools that an unauthorized party gained access to student and staff information stored in the system. Based on PowerSchool’s analysis, an estimated 28,000 current and former WS/FCS staff members and 150,000 current and former students were impacted by this data breach.
Anyone who worked or attended WS/FCS from 2014 to 2024, should review options for identity protection and credit monitoring provided by PowerSchool.
Data Breach Details
PowerSchool is responsible for notifying individuals impacted by the data breach. For WS/FCS, social security numbers for about 16,000 WS/FCS staff members were stolen were breached. No student social security numbers were involved because the state does not collect that information from students.
Additional data that has been breached includes names, home addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Identify Protection & Credit Monitoring
PowerSchool officials say it will provide:
Two years of complimentary identity protection services.
Two years of complimentary credit monitoring services.
Details on how to register for these services are available at the PowerSchool website, www.powerschool.com/security/sis-incident/notice-of-united-states-data-breach.
According to PowerSchool, the incident was contained and they do not anticipate the data being shared or made public. Law enforcement officials are monitoring to ensure the information has not been spread or shared.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) says there was no action WS/FCS could have taken to prevent this incident, which happened at the company level.