photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Interim superintendent Jeanice Swift talks with School Board President Kelly Jones and Board Member Carole Cadue-Blackwood at a meet and greet on Monday, August 12, 2024.

The Lawrence school district said Friday that none of its data appeared to have been accessed in a data breach that affected its student information software provider, Powerschool, last month.

Interim Superintendent Jeanice Swift provided details about the situation late Friday afternoon in an email to school families and staff. She said that on Tuesday, PowerSchool notified districts nationwide that “an unauthorized party gained access” to Powerschool’s data on Dec. 28 “using a compromised credential and remote access to account information.”

Swift said the district’s data team did an initial audit “to determine if our local data had been compromised,” and its findings indicated that none of the district’s data had been accessed. She said one member of the team described the situation like this: “an unauthorized account knocked on our door, but could not get in.”

The school district will continue working with PowerSchool to gather more information about the incident and will “seek assurances” that PowerSchool will implement necessary security measures, Swift said. It will also keep community members and employees updated as it gets more information, she said.

“Lawrence Public Schools takes seriously our responsibilities to protect the privacy of your personal information,” Swift said in the email. “This breach of PowerSchool’s data security not only violates our expectations for district vendors, it violates board policy and Kansas law.”