January 30, 2025
Dear Worcester Families,
We have been informed that our former Student Information System vendor PowerSchool was involved in a cybersecurity incident. The cybersecurity incident occurred on December 28, 2024, involving unauthorized access to certain information through one of their community-focused customer support portals. PowerSchool has since completed an investigation and have been notifying districts directly if their data was compromised. Unfortunately, Worcester Central School is one of those districts. While we no longer use PowerSchool directly, the platform still houses historical data of students, associated parents/guardians, and staff.
PowerSchool has indicated that the types of information identified in the data breach may have included one or more of the following: the individual’s name, contact information, date of birth, limited medical alert information, and Social Security Numbers (SSN). They have worked with urgency to complete their investigation and have partnered with Experian, a credit monitoring company. Experian will now start contacting individuals whose data may have been involved in the coming weeks via email. The email will include further information about the data involved and the resources PowerSchool is offering.
If you do not receive an email in the next few weeks from Experian, PowerSchool is offering two years of complimentary identity protection services for all current and former students, parents/guardians of students, and staff available here. Additionally, Experian has created a toll-free call center for families and staff in case they have questions about these offerings: 1-833-918-9464.
Protecting student, parent/guardian and staff information is a top priority at Worcester. We will continue to work diligently with PowerSchool and the Data Security and Privacy Department at the South Central Regional Information Center to make sure data is being protected. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.
Respectfully,
Tim Gonzales
Superintendent