North Carolina public school employees reported getting threatening emails in connection with a data breach first reported early this year.

Staff at about 20 agencies received demands for payment in Bitcoin in exchange for data that was taken when the PowerSchool system was compromised, state education officials said Wednesday.

PowerSchool announced in January that unauthorized access occurred Dec. 28. The breach affected over 62 million current and former students and teachers across the country, including in North Carolina. 

The demands for payment Wednesday involved the same data in the earlier breach, and a new breach did not appear to have occurred, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction chief information officer Vanessa Wrenn said during a virtual news conference.

She said authorities could not confirm whether the cybercriminals were the same, but this time they contacted educators, while earlier this year, they made demands of PowerSchool.

PowerSchool manages information for more than 1.5 million students and almost 100,000 teachers in the state’s public and charter schools. The system can track student attendance records, transcripts and contact information. 

Wrenn said that similar demands had been made of school systems in other states, including Oregon, and that PowerSchool reported agencies in Canada also had received threats.

Information stolen in the data breach included student and staff names, contact information, Social Security numbers, and parent and guardian information, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Maurice Green said.

Green said that the Department of Public Instruction would not engage with cyberattackers and that law enforcement had been notified of the threats.

The state attorney general in February announced an investigation to determine whether PowerSchool broke any laws when its system was compromised. 

Credit monitoring and identity theft protection are available to educators, students and families affected by the breach through July 31, Wrenn said.

State education officials decided in November 2023 to replace PowerSchool with Infinite Campus. The transition is set for July 1.