Dear County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators:

Vendor Incident Report

Educational Testing Service (ETS), a private company under contract with the State of California to provide student assessment services, has informed the California Department of Education (CDE) and the State Board of Education (SBE) of an incident involving ETS-operated systems.

The CDE and the SBE are urgently working with a team of state agencies to investigate and determine scope and impact of the incident, including what information may have been affected.

As part of the response, ETS has halted normal enrollment data processing and paused certain testing activities while the security of its systems are assessed, and the investigation continues. The CDE is actively working to minimize disruption and resume affected assessment activities in a timely manner.

Protecting California students and their information is our top priority. The CDE and SBE are taking this incident extremely seriously and are working to ensure that any affected students and families are identified, notified, and provided appropriate information and support as quickly as possible.

The CDE has established a webpage at https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/in/ets-incident.asp to provide updates and resources related to this incident. The webpage will be updated as additional information is confirmed, and LEAs are encouraged to check it regularly for the latest information and guidance.

We will provide additional information when we have confirmed facts to share. For any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the CDE’s Information Security & Privacy Office via email at SecurityIncident@cde.ca.gov.

Thank you,

Mary Nicely
Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction
California Department of Education