The Pleasant Valley School District has notified parents affected by the PowerSchool data breach that identity protection and credit monitoring services will be available to them for free.

“When we provided information to parents in the beginning, that was the information that we were provided,” said Superintendent James Konrad. “As they’ve done the forensic investigation, they as an entity PowerSchool, has communicated to Pleasant Valley, among other school districts, that they would provide the credit monitoring services.”

Konrad said the school district notified families and educators as soon as they knew the monitoring services would be available, so that they could sign up for it.

PowerSchool discovered it was the target of a cybersecurity incident on Dec. 28, 2024. The data breach involved school districts nationwide who use PowerSchool SIS (Student Information System) to handle students’ records. On Jan. 7, they notified the school districts who use the cloud-based software and may be affected by it.

Since then, PowerSchool said it has done a forensic investigation to learn the scope of the incident and monitor any signs of misuse of information. It stated on its website that there is no evidence of any malware or continued unauthorized activity in its system.

According to the PowerSchool website, identity protection and/or credit monitoring services will available for two years to families and educators whose information was involved.

“PowerSchool has engaged Experian, a trusted credit reporting agency, to provide these services,” the company stated on its website. “Starting in the next few weeks, PowerSchool will coordinate with Experian to provide notice on behalf of our customers to students — or their parents/guardians if the student is under 18 — and educators whose information was exfiltrated from their PowerSchool SIS.”

People under the age of 18 cannot enroll in the credit monitoring services, but their parents or guardians may enroll them. When they turn 18, they can enroll on their own behalf for credit monitoring for the remainder of the two years, the website stated.

The company asks people to continue to be vigilant in looking for any suspicious emails or other forms of contact.

“PowerSchool will never contact you by phone or email to request your personal or account information,” it stated on its website.

The types of information that may have been taken includes: a student’s name, contact information, date of birth, limited medical alert information Social Security number and other related information. Not all school districts have all of this information in their student information system.

Jason Van Voorhis, director of Instructional Technology and Innovation for the Pleasant Valley School District, reminded families in the notice this week “that no social security numbers or financial information were involved in this incident for Pleasant Valley students and staff, as PVSD does not collect or store this information in our student information system.”

For people who receive a notice, PowerSchool said the notice will include “a description of the categories of personal information that were exfiltrated and the identity protection and credit monitoring services offered (as applicable). We will also provide you a link to the notification if you would like to share with your community. Experian will also provide a call center to answer questions from the community.”

PowerSchool has notified any families who were affected.

Lehighton and Palmerton districts also use the PowerSchool platform.

To go directly to PowerSchool’s website for more information, type in https://www.powerschool.com/security/sis-incident/.