PowerSchool Incident background:
As you may be aware, PowerSchool – a cloud-based software vendor used by St. Johns County School District and over 50 million students globally– recently experienced a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain customer information in the PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS). St. Johns does use PowerSchool SIS products, and we were testing the Student Information Systems product at the time of the incident.
Please understand that this incident did not occur at St. Johns County School District; the unauthorized access occurred on PowerSchool’s computer systems and impacted many schools and districts in the US and abroad.
We take this incident very seriously and protecting personal information is one of our top priorities. As we learn more about how this incident at PowerSchool occurred, we will be reviewing our relationship with them. If that relationship is to continue, we will be seeking assurances that they have taken steps to reduce the risk of something like this happening again.
The District began notifying impacted staff and parents/guardians of students on February 4, 2025.
Upcoming Actions by PowerSchool:
PowerSchool has advised that it will be providing:
- Notification to Individuals Involved: In the upcoming weeks, in collaboration with Experian, PowerSchool will provide email notice to students (or their parents / guardians if the student is under 18) and educators whose information was involved. The email notice will include identity protection and credit monitoring services offered (as applicable). Families with multiple students impacted may receive emails for each student.
- Identity Protection and Credit Monitoring Services: PowerSchool has engaged Experian, a trusted credit reporting agency, to offer two years of complimentary identity protection services for all students and educators whose information was involved. This offer will also include two years of complimentary credit monitoring services for all students over 18 and educators whose information was involved.
- For more information on this incident and the affected data elements please view the PowerSchool Incident website.
- PowerSchool has contracted with Experian to provide a Help Phone line for users impacted by this incident. The Experian help line is (833) 918-9464.
What can you do to protect your identity?
We encourage you to sign up for complimentary credit and identity monitoring once you receive your email from PowerSchool/Experian.
Because the incident occurred at PowerSchool and the remediation services are being offered by PowerSchool/Experian, St. Johns County School District will be directing individuals to call PowerSchool or Experian for more information.
In the meantime, you may consider the following best practices to help protect your information:
- It is always advisable to regularly review and monitor your accounts and statements closely. If you detect any suspicious activity on an account, you should promptly notify the institution and/or the company with which the account is maintained.
- Stay vigilant against suspicious communications. If you receive an email, text or phone call from a sender you do not recognize, do not respond, open the message, or download attachments. Only click on links or attachments from emails and senders you trust.
- It is always a good practice to use strong passwords for your accounts and avoid using the same passwords across multiple applications, accounts, or services.
- Where possible, enable Multi-Factor Authentication, which is a multi-step account login process that requires users to enter more information than just a password.
- You may obtain a copy of your credit report, free of charge, once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies:
- Equifax: 1-800-685-1111; Equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services.
- Experian: 1-888-397-3742; Experian.com/help.
- TransUnion: 1-888-909-8872; TransUnion.com/credit-help.
- To order your annual free credit report, please visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll free at 1-877-322-8228.
- You may consider placing a fraud alert on your credit report. A fraud alert is free and will stay on your credit report for one year. The alert informs creditors of possible fraudulent activity within your report and requests that the creditor contact you prior to establishing any new accounts in your name. To place a fraud alert on your credit report, contact any of the three national credit reporting agencies. Additional information is available at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.