EGF Parents,
The Area Special Education Cooperative recently released the following media notification regarding a date breach of files housed by Pearson. East Grand Forks ISD 595 is a member of the ASEC and some of our students were included in the breach. School districts have used a programmed called AIMSWEB for many years to monitor student progress and it is where the breached information was stored. Over 2000 names (included first and last names) were included in the breach, but approximately 165 of those names included a school ID number specific to the student (example - 595000600951). No other information is included in the breached data and not all of the 165 students are from the EGF School District. I have a list of student names that included an ID numbers and am more than willing to answer individual questions to see if your child's name is on the list. PLEASE feel free to contact me by email or phone (218-793-2880) if you have any questions or concerns you have about the following media notification. Free credit monitoring is available for people impacted by the breach. The information included in the breach of the 165 students was first name, last name and student ID number. The remaining student names on the list only included first and last names. We have working closely with the ASEC staff to make sure the required steps were followed to notify anyone impacted by the breach.
THANK YOU!
Mike Kolness, EGF Supt of Schools
ASEC Media Notification:
It has been determined that a nationwide data breach impacting more than 13,000 schools and universities in the United States also affects students in districts served by the Area Special Education Cooperative which includes Ada-Borup, Climax-Shelly, East Grand Forks, Fertile-Beltrami, Fisher, Fosston, Norman County West, Norman County East, Red Lake County Central, Red Lake Falls, Stephen- Argyle Central, Warren- Alvarado-Oslo, and Win-E-Mac.
Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead, and Bismarck public schools previously reported being affected by the breach in a version of a data management platform called AIMSweb, which is owned by Pearson Clinical Assessment.
The data contained in the file, as provided by Pearson, included student first name, last name and in some instances a school ID number. There were approximately 2,000 students who had first and last name affected by the breach and of those approximately 165 had the student’s school ID number included.
Pearson has indicated there is no evidence any data accessed by the breach has been misused. Pearson Clinical Assessment is offering complimentary credit monitoring from Experian for people affected by the breach.
Parents can find more information on those services by calling 866-883-3309, or by emailing aimsweb1request@pearson.com. In the email, individuals are asked to provide their name, a statement of the situation and whether they would like the credit monitoring information. They'll then receive an email with links and instructions on signing up. Any family in the affected districts can sign up for monitoring.