State Auditor Nicole Galloway announced the launch of five cybersecurity audits in various Missouri school districts Wednesday.
The audits are a part of Galloway's Cyber Aware School Audits program, and will evaluate cybersecurity capabilities in the Boonville, Cape Girardeau, Orchard Farm, Park Hill and Waynesville school districts.
"In the past 10 years, over 250 K-12 schools have had a data breach," Galloway said. "Several of those exist here in Missouri."
Galloway said in the past year alone, Park Hill, Fulton and Belton school districts have experienced data breaches.
The goals of the audits are to "assess the procedures that those schools have in place to keep student information safe and secure, to recommend improvements if there are any steps they need to take to keep it secure, and to hold them accountable to that," Galloway said.
She chose the five districts because they represented a wide variety of locations and sizes. While Galloway said she can't commit to investigating every district in the state right now, she will announce more audits in 2016 and hopes to maintain the project as an ongoing process.
"You can't do this one time and then you're finished," Galloway said. "As technology changes, as we interact with technology in different ways, we need to adapt."
Galloway said her office will hold the districts accountable by meeting with the school boards and making the findings public, but that it will be the responsibility of the school boards to make the recommended changes - and bear the costs.
"School boards are responsible for making local decisions, so they would be accountable for protecting local student data," Galloway said.
Galloway said she cannot comment on whether or not this might lead to budgetary increases for schools, and that her office "will withhold judgment until the results are in."
"This initiative takes it further, focusing on schools and student protections, but we are also looking at this from the state level to make sure we can protect all people's information."
Galloway said her office is also auditing the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's student information system and the Office of State Court Administrations' Justice Information Systems to determine their "integrity and security."