Under the Dome: NC attorney general launches probe into PowerSchool data breach
Good morning and welcome to the Under the Dome newsletter. I’m Emily Vespa.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson is investigating the nationwide PowerSchool data breach that impacted nearly 4 million North Carolinians, he announced Thursday.
“I’m a parent who uses PowerSchool, so I know what millions of North Carolina families are concerned about with this data breach,” Jackson said in a news release. “I’m investigating PowerSchool to determine if they broke any laws in this process, and I’ll take additional legal action if necessary.”
All North Carolina public schools used PowerSchool to record student information, such as attendance and grades, for more than a decade. Last month, the software company notified the state that a hacker accessed personal student and teacher data, The News & Observer previously reported.
The cyber attack potentially exposed Social Security numbers, addresses and names of minors, The N&O previously reported. Vanessa Wrenn, the chief information officer for the state Department of Public Instruction, said Thursday that the Social Security numbers for at least 900 students were exposed.
Wrenn said that PowerSchool has begun notifying families and educators who were affected by the breach that they’ll get two years of free identity theft protection from Experian.
PowerSchool has said the data has been destroyed and the incident is contained. It doesn’t believe there are other copies of the data, it said.
FORMER GOV. ROY COOPER TAKES TEACHING ROLE AT HARVARD
Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is taking a teaching role at Harvard University, but he hasn’t ruled out a 2026 U.S. Senate run, he exclusively told Danielle Battaglia.
Cooper will teach an eight-week course on the intersection of government and public health as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The fellowship program recruits people who have recently served in high-level jobs in government, nonprofits or other organizations to mentor students interested in similar roles.
Cooper, a Democrat, has been widely speculated as a potential 2026 challenger to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Cooper has served in the state House and Senate, as attorney general and as a two-term governor.
“I want to keep making a difference, and together with my family, we are considering all the options, including elected office,” Cooper said in a written statement. “As I weigh those options, I look forward to teaching and working with aspiring public servants who, despite everything going on in the world, still care deeply about improving people’s health and using their work to build bridges.”
WHAT EDUCATION OFFICIALS WANT FROM THE LEGISLATURE
The State Board of Education wants the General Assembly to provide more money this year for public schools and not expand funding for the Opportunity Scholarship program.
The state board voted 9-2 on Thursday to ask lawmakers to put a moratorium on expansion of the private school voucher program for the 2025-26 school year. Board members want this year’s planned $433 million increase in voucher funding to go to public schools instead.
Republican board members Olivia Oxendine and State Treasurer Brad Briner were the lone no votes.
There was more support for the rest of the board’s legislative request, which includes:
Provide students with free school breakfasts and lunches: $329 million
Help schools replace computers purchased with federal COVID aid so every student can continue to have a device: $152.6 million
Convert state grants so that elementary and middle schools can get money to hire their own school resource officers: $120 million
Address facility needs for western NC school districts impacted by Hurricane Helene: $100 million
Hire additional school counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists: $65.5 million
The board wants state lawmakers to raise teacher pay to make North Carolina the highest in the Southeast, though no specific amount was listed. The board also wants to restore extra pay to teachers who have a master’s degree.
-T. Keung Hui
LAWMAKERS RENEW EFFORT TO IMPOSE CIVICS REQUIREMENT IN NC UNIVERSITIES
Republican state lawmakers revived an effort to mandate a civics education curriculum in UNC System schools last week, despite a new system policy instituted to avoid such a step.
The NC REACH Act would require students at the state’s public universities or community colleges to take a course on American government with required readings of major documents in U.S. history. Students must pass an exam worth 20% of their final grade on the “principles” of the readings, the bill says.
Some faculty previously expressed alarm about the REACH Act, which passed the House in 2023 but died in the Senate.
Wade Maki, the UNC System faculty assembly chair and a professor at UNC Greensboro, said while there is widespread support for teaching students about American history, “faculty are very concerned in higher ed when there [are] those outside of the faculty determining what courses, what curriculum, what requirements, what readings are appropriate.”
In response, a team of faculty, including Maki, helped devise a more flexible UNC System policy with similar civics education requirements for students, which passed last year.
An array of courses that cover the “foundations of American democracy” can meet the criteria. Maki said without an infusion of funding, smaller institutions couldn’t muster the resources to offer a new course mandated by the REACH Act.
Students will start the foundations of American democracy courses in the fall, Maki said. Still, a group of Republican House members reintroduced the REACH Act last week.
“The faculty appreciate all of the interest from our stakeholders in supporting education about this great country of ours, and we know that the students are going to be eager to get into the big debates in American society,” Maki said. The legislation “reinforces, to me, the importance of what we did in the foundations of American democracy [policy].”
WHAT ELSE WE’RE WORKING ON
North Carolina’s public universities must suspend diversity, equity and inclusion course requirements, the UNC System said after President Donald Trump’s January executive order that targets the efforts. Read more from Korie Dean.
Today’s newsletter was by Emily Vespa and T. Keung Hui. Check your inbox Sunday for more #ncpol.
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This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Under the Dome: NC attorney general launches probe into PowerSchool data breach."
