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School & District News

Like every other school system in North Carolina and many across the nation and around the world, LCPS has been notified by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction that a data breach has occurred involving the vendor for student information data management used by North Carolina's public schools, a company called PowerSchool.  On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 7, PowerSchool alerted all North Carolina public school systems and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to a cybersecurity incident impacting student and teacher data across their global client base. This incident extended beyond North Carolina to include school systems across our country and around the world. PowerSchool is a student information system (SIS) that has been in use in North Carolina since 2013.

On December 28, 2024, PowerSchool became aware of a cybersecurity incident that began on December 19, 2024, involving unauthorized access to student and teacher data. According to PowerSchool, the data breach occurred when the credentials of a PowerSchool contract employee were compromised and used to view data from North Carolina's public schools. NCDPI has responded to our inquiry and has confirmed that student and teacher data from our district and others was accessed by an unauthorized party. PowerSchool has shared that "... the threat has been contained and that the compromised data was not shared in any way and has been destroyed." PowerSchool is working with law enforcement to monitor the dark web for any data exposure.

There is nothing NCDPI, LCPS or any of the school systems across North Carolina could have done to prevent this incident, as neither we, nor DPI, have access to where the breach occurred. Protecting student and teacher data continues to be a top priority for the NC Department of Public Instruction and for our school system.  We will provide updates when any new information becomes available.