Jasmine Williams of WMGT reports that an online security breach was the beginning of a sequence of events that led Wilkinson County officials in Georgia to dismiss schools early on Friday:
According to authorities, a Wilkinson County student accessed the user names and passwords to PowerTeacher. PowerTeacher is a classroom management system used to store grades, demographics and personal information including social security numbers. The log-in information was posted on a website. Wilkinson County Sheriff Richard Chatman said after a few parents started receiving strange phone calls, law enforcement launched an investigation.
“One parent had their child’s personal information repeated to them over the phone,” Chatman says.
On Friday, the schools received more phone calls and emails but this time with a threatening tone. Superintendent Aaron Geter made the cautious call to send students home early.
Read more on WMGT. There’s no statement on the district’s web site as of the time of this blog entry.