VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Virginia Beach City Public Schools said it's investigating after someone hacked into a Zoom classroom filled with 5th graders and showed a picture of a man’s body parts on the screen.
The students typically go to Windsor Oaks Elementary School but are learning virtually due to coronavirus. The incident happened on Friday and the principal immediately notified parents.
The message said in part: “I want to inform you that we received notification regarding inappropriate information that appeared on Zoom.”
“They are struggling enough with not being able to socialize with their classmates, struggling with the systems in place for them to do remote learning and now to deal with this, I can’t even imagine," grandparent Lucretia Gregory said. "I can’t even fathom it.”
Virginia Beach police said a parent filed a police report Monday, saying someone showed an inappropriate picture of a man’s body parts on the screen.
“I feel for the students in the class, I feel for the teacher who probably did everything he or she could in order to do the right thing and protect the students and it’s just unfortunate that his/her class was hacked,” said Virginia Beach Education Association President Kelly Walker.
Walker said she hopes more safety measures are put into place.
“It’s really sad and hopefully now we can really put some emphasis on making sure that the platform we use for our schools are safe,” she explained.
The school division released a statement:
Our families rely on us to provide a safe learning environment for their children, and we take any breach of that trust very seriously. This unfortunate incident is being investigated by our Department of Technology. Safety protocols are being reviewed and will be reinforced and updated if needed. Should any violation of our student code of conduct be discovered, it will be dealt with to the fullest disciplinary extent.
