NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - School Director Announces Plan To Clean Up Security Problem

School Director Announces Plan To Clean Up Security Problem

FRANKLIN, Tenn.- It now appears a security breach at Williamson County schools was much worse than expected. School officials now say more than 5,000 students may have been affected when a school employee accidently posted their personal information online.

Now the county could lose some federal funding because of the mistake.  The school district had to notify the Department of Education because this was a federal violation.

They have, at least, narrowed down the students who are affected, so they can start trying to clean up the mess. Director of Schools, Rebecca Sharber is taking on the responsibility of fixing the problem.

"I'm the head of the school system. I'm accountable," said Sharber.

Sharber said she didn't know what was going on, but now that she's been informed, she's cleaning up the mess created when the names and social security numbers of thousands of students was placed on the web.

"It certainly is distressing to me that information was ever out there," said Sharber.

According to school officials, former assessment specialist, Chris Nugent is responsible for the computer mix-up. He resigned Friday. It was August last year when Nugent mistakenly loaded the info on a personal web page, but he never alerted the district. They only found out a couple of weeks ago.

Nugent is no stranger to trouble. He was arrested earlier this year for DUI. He did not answer the door when NewsChannel 5 went to his home to ask questions.

Sharber said the first step will be to look at revising policies on student information. They will also pay for fraud alerts for the students. Sharber also had a word of warning for other districts.

"I would say to other school districts they need to really, really check their policies and procedures on how student data is being used," said Sharber.

More than 5,000 students had their security information posted. Most of those are high school students who took the ACT in the 2006-2007 school year, and second graders who took the TCAP the same year. The information was on the internet for about a month.

It could cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for those fraud alerts. The Williamson County school district contacted Metro in hopes of working with the company they used after someone stole a laptop computer from the Davidson County Election Commission containing social security numbers.