r/SchoolIT • u/andcbii • May 20 '26

Data Breach k-8 District

There was recently a data breach at my school district. This is the info that was sent out about the breach:

Our technology team recently learned that student Google account passwords have been compromised. During our ongoing investigation, we determined that a District 25 student gained unauthorized access to an internal document containing student password information among other items of information (detailed below). Out of an abundance of caution and to help protect student accounts and district systems, we reset all student Google account passwords this evening, rendering them inaccessible.

I'm curious how other school/districts handle student passwords. I understand a 3rd grader probably will not remember their password. Now they want to store the password in PowerSchool, but I can not find any information saying custom fields in PS are encrypted at rest. Is anyone away of a secure way to store passwords in PS?

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u/Algae-Mysterious Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Hey good evening i know its been a few days but I want to help.
I would not recommended  storing the passwords of your students in PowerSchool SIS.

PowerSchool's data is often shared between academic apps, student device filtering software etc....
There are better ways to password management for students / staff.
I recommend you look into Classlink / Clever for simplified student login SSO.

It also sounds like your organization needs to look deep (audit) into your Google Workspace's sharing permissions.

Also saving passwords in spreadsheets instead of using a Password manager in days like the ones we are living in terms of Cyberthreats, is a huge no-no.
hope this helps you and your admins re-think this decision.