On Dec. 19, 2024, a breach occurred with the credentials of a PowerSchool employee that resulted in the personal data of current and former students and staff leaking, including full names, addresses and social security numbers. PowerSchool became aware of the break on Dec. 28. They assured people that data accessed was destroyed and no additional copies remained. On Jan. 7, 2025, PowerSchool notified the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and Wake County Public School Systems about the breach. It was not localized to North Carolina but also affected schools nationwide.
WCPSS announced on Jan. 16 that PowerSchool would be replaced with Infinite Campus as the new North Carolina Student Information System. The change will be statewide, as the breach also affected Cumberland, Nash and Orange County schools, among many others.
PowerSchool is very familiar to students and staff as it’s been used by WCPSS for over a decade. Teachers have handled it for years and know the ins and out by heart. The transition from PowerSchool to Infinite Campus will impose a learning curve to everyone and may cause annoyance to many people. The change can be compared to the switch from Google Classroom to Canvas. There were a lot of issues, many of which are still apparent.
Sarah Menafra is a Spanish teacher at FVHS and is one of the few staff members being trained on Infinite Campus before everyone else. She, along with other staff in training, will eventually train the rest of the staff on the application and help with any issues both teachers and students may have.
Menafra said, “There is a little bit of a learning curve with Infinite Campus, just like any new digital platform. I think students and staff will both like it once they get used to it. I like Infinite Campus more [than PowerSchool]. There are many more features and ways to navigate around it, and it’s more visually appealing.”
The accessibility of Infinite Campus has also been taken into consideration. Infinite Campus supposedly has better accessibility for ESL students such as report card feedback in Spanish.
Menafra said, “Being a Spanish teacher definitely helps me relate to learning things in another language and the challenges that brings. It also helps because a lot of our ESL students speak Spanish, so I can easily communicate with those students.”
