HELENA — Helena Public Schools sent a warning to parents this week that personal information may have been compromised following a national cyber security hack.

The PowerSchool platform is a cloud-based system that helps manage student, parent, and teacher communication for over 60,000 schools worldwide, including Helena Public Schools. It was breached on December 28th, 2024.

“What we know is that a credential of PowerSchool, not the district but of PowerSchool, was compromised, and then that compromised credential was used to access the student information system of a lot of school districts across the country,” said Gary Myers, the director of education technology at Helena Public Schools.

Hackers could access student data, such as primary phone numbers, addresses, and enrollment by using a compromised login through the PowerSchool support portal. Teacher data, including employment status and work assignments, was also compromised.

According to HPS, the number of impacted users on the district’s system remains under investigation, and is still awaiting confirmation on whose information has been compromised.

“Part of the investigation is identifying specifically which users may need some mitigation. [PowerSchool] will offer credit and privacy monitoring to anyone at risk. They’ll give us a list of those who might be at risk, and once they’ve shared that with us, we’ll share it with those users,” said Myers.

The compromised credential has since been deactivated, and access to the compromised portal has been restricted. On Jan. 9, the district said all student information system services were fully online and operational.

A report on the incident by a third party is expected to be released on Jan. 17.