By Dr. Melissa Williams
McIntosh County School Superintendent
On January 8, 2025, McIntosh County School district was informed of a cybersecurity event involving PowerSchool. PowerSchool is a software vendor which provides our Student Information System (SIS) and other products for K-12 schools.
McIntosh County Schools and several school districts across the country contract with PowerSchool to host their student information systems (SIS). PowerSchool discovered that an unauthorized party gained access to certain PowerSchool customer data belonging to students and teachers in various K-12 school districts across the nation.
PowerSchool has stated that this incident is contained and does not anticipate that the data will be shared or made public and that there is no evidence of malware or continued unauthorized activity. PowerSchool has assured us that they have secured their systems to prevent further incidents.
Unfortunately, PowerSchool has confirmed that the information breached belongs to some of the school district’s families. PowerSchool informed us that the taken data primarily includes parent and student contact information with data element, such as name and address information.
Across their customer base, they have determined that for a portion of individuals, some personally identifiable information (PII), such as social security numbers (SSN) and medical information, was impacted. They are working with urgency to complete their investigation and determine whether PII belonging to our students was included.
McIntosh County Schools will continue to work with PowerSchool to understand the full impact on our staff, students, and parents to ensure the safety of our information. In the meantime, we recommend that you remain vigilant and monitor all personal accounts for any signs of suspicious activity. Further information will be provided upon completion of the investigation.
We thank you for your patience as we work through this situation along with other school districts across the country.
