Contact: Frederick Lewis (DCPS) | (202) 480-0860

WASHINGTON, DC (February 03, 2015) – District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Chief of Specialized Instruction Dr. Nathaniel Beers issued the following statement today regarding special education student information:

“We recently learned that the public has been able to gain access to an internal website that was launched in 2010 and stores training materials for DCPS staff related to special education cases. Some student information was listed in those training materials, as well as login information to a database regarding the District’s special education students. There is currently no evidence that data was compromised. Accessing this information without explicit permission is illegal. 

As soon as we were alerted to the availability of this information, DCPS immediately shut down the site and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) changed the login information to the database.

We apologize to DC students and their families for this situation, and will be reaching out to families to explain what happened. Families can call our help line at (202) 442-5451 if they have further questions.

We understand how important it is to safeguard student information and will conduct a top-to-bottom review of our security practices to ensure this does not happen again.”