Class Rank, GPA Information Disseminated in Email

An investigation into how someone could have obtained class rank and grade point averages for students is underway, district officials said.

In a district statement released Thursday afternoon, officials said that at approximately 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday an email from an "unidentified sender" containing class rank and GPA information was distributed to high school students.

John Nodecker,  assistant superintendent for secondary education, told Patch that it does not appear that the sender breached any of the district's security systems.  

"We've done a really intensive investigation," Nodecker said. "It appears to us that this information was for legitimate purposes and somebody took this information separately."

have been notified and are helping with the investigation, Nodecker said. Horsham Police Detective Bob Waeltz confirmed that the department is investigating and said no arrests have been made. He declined to comment further. 

Nodecker said the district has "some leads," in terms of the email sender and said the "natural assumption" is that a student distributed the information. 

The email "was obviously not belonging to a real person," Nodecker said, adding that it was determined not to be spam because it contained "real data."

The email is in violation of the district's acceptable use policy, which Nodecker said has "pretty serious" penalties - including expulsion for a student. 

"We would be looking to the full extent of punishment," he said. "Taking someone’s information is not legal."

The district implemented additional safeguards to ensure similar incidents do not happen in the future, Nodecker said. 

"We've tightened down everything," Nodecker said. 

Additional details would be provided once the investigation concludes, he said.