K-12 Crisis: Responding to a Sector-Wide Cyber Incident

On June 4, 2025, the Global Resilience Federation’s Business Resilience Council held its 2nd Annual Summit on Resilience & Security. The online, multi-sector event featured speakers discussing topics relevant to all-hazards threats - including a panel on the experiences of the U.S. K-12 education sector.

The education sector panel was moderated by K12 SIX Director Doug Levin and featured Lisa Helme (Vermont Agency of Education) and Andy Lombardo (Maryville City Schools). Together, they explored the sector-wide lessons learned from the PowerSchool cyber incident. The incident represents perhaps the best example - and certainly the most recent - of the potential impact of the compromise of a vendor critical to the operations of a significant number of school systems nationwide.