'Zoombomber' flashes students; Berkeley schools pause online classes
Pandemic puts a damper on college tours, institutions turn to technology
Spring brings an educational rite-of-passage, as millions of high school seniors choose where they’ll go to college. That decision hinges in part, on campus tours, which are not possible due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
BERKELEY, Calif. (KTVU) - Berkeley Unified School District pressed pause on online-classes after a man exposed himself to students during an instructional lesson on a video conferencing platform.
As first reported by Berkeleyside, the naked "Zoombomber" joined the online Berkeley High class unannounced and used racial slurs.
Brent Stephens, superintendent of BUSD, said in a message to families that officers are investigating the incident.
Districts across the state have switched to distance learning due to the stay-at-home spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing teachers to turn to platforms like Zoom and Google Meet to conduct classes.
The district said it implemented different measures to protect the online space for students and staff, but some sessions haven't run smoothly.
Officials have received reports of students misbehaving during teachers' online office hours.
"In two incidents, students behaved inappropriately, forcing teachers to end instructional sessions," Stephens said.
Teachers have been instructed to end the use of Zoom and Google Meet for online lessons and instead use Google Classroom and recorded lectures that don't have live interaction components until the district finds another solution.
Similar to Berkeley, several cities around the country have also dealt with Zoombombing and people bombarding online meetings to say and do inappropriate things.