By Roger Sims (rsims@linncountyjournal.com) with reporting by Kayla McGrew, board clerk
MOUND CITY– Superintendent Shawn Thomas gave the Jayhawk USD 346 Board of Education an update on the PowerSchool data breach at the board’s meeting on Monday, March 10. PowerSchool, an information system that is used by schools nationwide, notified its schools in December 2024 that a data breach had been discovered.
The Jayhawk school district uses PowerSchool to manage student information including grades, attendance and schedules and allows an online portal to give teachers, parents and students access to pertinent information.
Last month the district notified parents that no social security numbers had been in the data that was compromised in the breach. The notification also recognized that PowerSchool was reaching out to parents via email to offer free credit monitoring services, however, the district notification pointed out that it was PowerSchool not the district that was providing that service.
At Monday’s meeting the superintendent told the board that PowerSchool had engaged risk management agencies to monitor the data that was accessed and no data has been used so far.
Thomas also gave the board an update on bills that are working their way through the Kansas Legislature currently.
One of the House bills concerning the budget for K-12 education would eliminate the statute-mandated reimbursement for 92% of the extra costs for special education. However, the budget proposed by Gov. Laura Kelly would keep that funding in place.
Another House bill would eliminate the revenue neutral rate requirements where school districts would need to go through procedural hoops if they intended to increase their tax revenue for the coming year. Because of the structure of school funding, very few districts are able to keep budgets below the revenue neutral rate.
Thomas also told the board about a Senate bill that would expand a voucher program for low-income students to allow them to attend private schools.
In other action, the board:
• Learned that DCS Services, a Wichita-based project-management company, will be presenting several options for science classroom renovations. Whichever option the board chooses, the renovation is scheduled to take place during the fall of 2026.
• Learned that Reality U – a financial simulation that the eight-, 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-grade classes will be attending – has been rescheduled for Thursday, April 24.
• Reviewed a document on open enrollment capacities. Thomas will bring a formal recommendation in April. Approved April 7 to be a student contact day instead of teacher inservice because seniors would otherwise have a shortage of hours because of a multitude of snow days this school year.
• Following an executive session accepted the resignation of Robert Beckham, JLHS assistant principal effective at the conclusion of this school year. The board also approved hiring Josh Randall as a JLHS math teacher, and Reese Haney and Jenna Terry as elementary school teachers for the 2025-26 school year.
• Approved supplemental contracts for Jacob Craven as JLHS head baseball coach and Brody White and Hunter Jameson as assistant baseball coaches for this spring.
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