The San Diego County Office of Education has been selected by the Federal Communications Commission to join a three-year cybersecurity pilot program, the agency said this week, days after a number of local school districts were hit by a data breach affecting a vendor. The hundreds of participating schools, districts, libraries and consortia around the country, including 64 in California, will get support for the costs of eligible cybersecurity services and equipment. In turn, they’ll share data with the FCC so it can better understand how universal service funds could be used to better defend school networks and data against cyber attacks. The release said that $200 million budget uses “reserved, unused universal service funds” so that any improvements to enhanced cybersecurity would not impact E-Rate success in basic connectivity and promoting digital opportunities for everyone. Samantha Womack, director of communications for the county office of education, said the agency looks forward to using the program to keep supporting schools and districts against cyber attacks. “SDCOE has been committed to leading the effort to meet ever increasing cyber security challenges in K-12 schools and district, and this is another tool to help keep our students and staff members safe,” she said. The Thursday announcement of the program comes after San Diego Unified School District told families last week that their data may have been affected by a breach involving the ed-tech platform PowerSchool. A number of other districts around the county also use PowerSchool, among them Encinitas Union, Chula Vista Elementary, Escondido Union, Ramona Unified, Rancho Sante Fe and Santee, Womack said. It wasn’t immediately clear how many were affected; Chula Vista said it was not, while Santee said it was. The FCC said the program’s data collection will help to fight a rise in cybersecurity threats and attacks, especially for libraries and schools as they become more reliant on digital learning technologies. The release also said the increased need of students, school staff and library patrons to be connected to information, jobs and “life-long learning” have led to an increase in bandwidth in schools and libraries. In selecting participants, commission staff prioritized schools that serve high numbers of low-income students and tried to ensure diversity in size, location and more. The program is part of an initiative that also updated the E-Rate program, which makes telecom and information services more affordable for eligible schools, in order to support Wi-Fi hotspots, Wi-Fi on school buses and libraries in tribal communities.