If you went to school in the U.S. or Canada in the last twenty years, PowerSchool probably held your grades. By its IPO, its software served schools with over 45 million students, more than 70 percent of all K-12 students in the two countries. Teachers took attendance in it. Parents checked report cards in it. When PowerSchool went public in July 2021, two private equity firms controlled almost 79 percent of the vote.

Every Student's Record

PowerSchool started in 1997 as a student information system, the database that tracks who is enrolled, what they take, and how they do. Schools rarely switch those systems once they pick one. That made PowerSchool sticky. The company added tools for special education, hiring, finance, and learning. The bet was that schools would buy one connected platform instead of a dozen separate products. Vista Equity Partners and Onex owned most of it by the IPO.

Back to Private Hands

PowerSchool priced its offering at $18 a share in July 2021 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PWSC. Revenue kept growing, but the stock stayed modest. In 2024 Bain Capital agreed to buy the company, and PowerSchool left the NYSE that October. A few months later it disclosed a data breach that exposed records of students and teachers. It now operates as a private company.

Cover: The School Teacher, Albrecht Dürer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for the schoolmaster (the classroom record).