by Georgia Charter Schools Association
By David Angerdina
CTS Cyber Practice Lead
The PowerSchool breach hit differently. Cyber incidents have been occurring for years, but the extent of this breach was deeply frightening and eye-opening. THOUSANDS of schools, students (current and former), teachers and parents were affected by this breach, and the magnitude of the damage is still being uncovered.
Your MSP provider likely brings up your cybersecurity posture, how it currently measures up and what you need to do to continuously strengthen your school’s health. The reality is most schools don’t think it will impact them, but the likelihood of a breach affecting your school is very much a reality and there is no end in sight. If anything, these breaches will exponentially increase.
By being proactive (start with a discussion!), you’ll be helping your school in so many ways. Don’t compromise the sensitive data of your constituents. Take small steps to ensure your school is safe and secure.
We can all talk about lessons learned – from the importance of early detection to protection of private and sensitive data to the importance of an effective incident response plan. What’s most important is how we take these lessons learned and apply them to our current situation.
CTS has been keeping a watch on all the PowerSchool updates, and we continue to stay on top of any developments. We have shared multiple communications with clients (included here). These communications are in order of developments, and they give the reader a good sense of all available information, templates, etc.
CTS will be a hosting a cybersecurity webinar which will focus on current and future regulations that will impact schools, learnings from the recent PowerSchool breach, a walk-through of a 10-step blueprint for Cybersecurity Maturity (which will help you take the necessary steps to protect students and staff), and sharing how to be prepared for external audits, as these become more frequent (and necessary).
The webinar will take place on Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 1pm ET. Please sign up at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o0yKJrfRSu6nAiUok2zd2A
Georgia Charter Schools Association
The Georgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA) is the membership organization for Georgia’s charter school operators and petitioners, established in 2001. Our mission is to be an effective advocate and service provider for all charter public schools in Georgia.
