Dear families and educators of the Petersburg School community:
We are writing to inform you of a recent development related to the cybersecurity incident PowerSchool experienced in December 2024.
PowerSchool is aware that a threat actor has reached out to multiple school district customers in an attempt to extort them using data from the previously reported December 2024 incident. PowerSchool does not believe this is a new incident and Petersburg has not been one of those School Districts.
Please be assured that both PowerSchool and the Petersburg School District are taking this situation very seriously. PowerSchool has informed us they are working with cybersecurity experts to thoroughly assess this development and have reported it to law enforcement in both Canada and the United States.
As a reminder, following that incident, PowerSchool offered and made widely available credit monitoring and identity protection services for two years to students and faculty of Petersburg School District regardless of whether they were individually involved. We encourage all those who were offered these services to take advantage of them, this offer expires July 31, 2025, follow this link for instructions on how to sign up. With this link you can create monitoring for yourself and your minor children. Students 18 years or older will need to create their own account using the same link.
For individuals in the U.S.: https://www.powerschool.com/
For individuals in Canada: https://www.powerschool.com/
As was reported earlier this year, PowerSchool made the decision to pay a ransom because they believed it to be in the best interest of their customers and the students and communities they serve. As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided by PowerSchool.
We wanted to share this update as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency. We remain committed to working closely with PowerSchool and law enforcement to provide support in any way we can.
Sincerely,
Superintendent
Robyn Taylor