State education officials say the personal information of students and staff at several dozen Vermont school districts may have been compromised in a statewide data breach of a student information system.

PowerSchool, a California-based company that provides a student information system and cloud software to 39 school districts in Vermont, told customers on Tuesday that personal information belonging to students, staff and faculty at school districts across the country had been hacked, according to officials.

According to a report by TechCrunch, the company serves more than 75% of students in North America and its software is used by approximately 16,000 customers to support more than 50 million students in the United States.

Schools use the software to manage student records, grades, attendance and enrollment.

It’s unclear how many school districts in Vermont were affected by the data breach. Lindsey Hedges, a spokeswoman for the state education department, said in an email that not all of the 39 districts that use PowerSchool were affected, but noted that the agency “will continue to work with districts and stay in touch to to achieve the full effect.” The incident takes its course.”

The Champlain Valley School District was among the affected districts. Adam Bunting, the district’s superintendent, said in a letter to families that “the education agency is actively working with PowerSchool to determine next steps.”

“We understand that the situation is concerning and will keep you updated as we learn more,” Bunting wrote in the letter.

In a telephone interview, Bunting said PowerSchool informed the district that the breached personal information of teachers and staff primarily included things like contact information.

“As far as we know, the information does not include things like Social Security numbers,” he said. “The initial information we have is that it’s more about contact information.”

Student information can include names, addresses, emails and dates of birth, according to Bunting.

A spokeswoman for PowerSchool, Beth Keebler, said in an emailed statement that the company is “committed to protecting the security and integrity of our applications.”

“We take our responsibility to protect student privacy and act as data processors extremely seriously,” the statement said. “Our priority is to support our customers through this incident and continue our relentless focus on data security.”

TechCrunch reported that hackers successfully breached the company’s school information system, and the company was alerted to the breach on or around December 28th.

“As soon as we learned of the incident, we immediately activated our cybersecurity response protocols and mobilized a cross-functional response team, including senior executives and external cybersecurity experts,” the company said in the statement.

The company said it does not expect the data to be shared or made public.

Zoie Saunders, Vermont’s education secretary, said in a correspondence with supervisors of the affected districts that the impact of the breach could vary from district to district.

“We understand that this news may be concerning, but rest assured that the agency takes incidents involving student information very seriously and is committed to ensuring that all necessary measures are taken to protect this data,” she wrote.