CUMBERLAND – The Cumberland County Public Schools' student report cards were scheduled to go home this week but due to a technical difficulty things have changed, according to information provided by school Superintendent Dr. Amy Griffin.

On Thursday, the school system's server that housed its student information system (PowerSchool) crashed.

“We are currently in the process of restoring all information within the system,” stated Dr. Griffin on her weekly blog that can be found on the school division's website.

Because of the technology crash, report cards for the second six weeks will now be sent home on Tuesday, November 16 and will be in a different format.

“I would like to thank all parents, staff, and students in advance for remaining patient and understanding as this matter is resolved,” Dr. Griffin continued. “I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

A letter detailing the technology crash and an Instant Alert message were sent out on Monday.

During Cumberland's School Board meeting on Monday evening, the Board was notified that (as part of the updated and approved Technology Plan) several changes will be made related to backing up the school division's computer systems.

“…There was actually two things that we wanted to change in addition to the plan that you have and one concerned the issue of backing up data,” said Elizabeth Jamerson, supervisor of human resources, to the Board. “In light of recent events, we decided that we should revisit and we do have a section in our plan about disaster recovery but we decided we needed to expand that a little bit and put in further provisions and we have added a strategy…”

According to Ms. Jamerson, backups will begin to be made to several of the school's databases on a weekly basis and PowerSchool will be backed up in the future by that company.