Wake County to switch student data system July 1; PowerSchool goes offline June 26, staff say

Wake County Public School System technology staff told the school board at a work session that the district will move to the Infinite Campus student information system with a planned go‑live on July 1, 2025, and that the state‑contracted product PowerSchool will go offline during the final conversion window.

Jeff Alford of Technology Services, project manager Mikayla Cross and Sandy Honeycutt, director of Student Information Systems, updated the board on scope, timeline, training and risk mitigation for what the district described as a statewide modernization initiative. The State Board of Education awarded a contract to Infinite Campus in November 2023; phase 1 districts launched in July 2024, and Wake County is in phase 2.

Staff said the district will implement three Infinite Campus modules at go‑live: the core student information system (SIS), the full online registration module and Campus Passport (the vendor’s learning/learning‑resource portal). District presenters said they plan to evaluate additional available modules after the initial launch. “We will be implementing 3 of those in July 2025,” Sandy Honeycutt said.

Project status and migration timeline: presenters said the work was about 65% complete and that Wake County had run two trial conversions (most recently April 14) to validate data. Staff gave June 13 as the date the district will present final data to Infinite Campus for conversion; they said Infinite Campus will hand the district the production environment “keys” on or about June 23, and that PowerSchool is scheduled to go dark June 26 as the state runs end‑of‑year processing. The district’s stated go‑live date is July 1.

Staff warned of short pauses to online registration and transfers during the final conversion window. The presentation listed a June 13–July 1 window for online registration to be unavailable while final conversion work proceeds; staff said transfers would also be paused in the final conversion period and that they will notify families with guidance on next steps. District staff asked schools to finalize master schedules by the week of the presentation and said they would provide lists to year‑round schools so principals could plan for likely incoming families when the system reopens.

Data and security: presenters said Wake County had to change its data export method because district job schedules prevented the state’s PowerSchool API from producing complete files at scale. “We are pulling our data and presenting it,” a technology presenter said, describing a district‑managed export process used to produce full files for Infinite Campus. Staff said all files are uploaded to a secure shell and that Wake County will not send Social Security numbers to the vendor; “there is no Social Security information in the system,” a presenter said.

Training and support: staff described a phased training plan that uses Infinite Campus’s “flipped classroom” model (on‑demand videos on Campus Passport plus recorded virtual Q&A) and in‑person sessions for school gradebook contacts. The district said it has a dedicated Infinite Campus trainer, weekly data‑manager sessions, and a district help‑desk process routed to implementation staff. Presenters said teachers, principals and data managers will receive targeted communications and that material for families will be posted on the district’s public information pages.

Board members asked about coordination with other districts and data security. Staff said Wake County had engaged phase‑1 districts and state DPI resources for lessons learned and that, to their knowledge, Infinite Campus did not have a history of breaches; they reiterated the district will not transmit Social Security numbers.

No formal board vote was taken on the implementation at the meeting. Staff said they will continue training and final conversion work in the weeks before the July go‑live.