April 14, 2020 10:45 a.m.
A Roseburg Public Schools online lesson on Zoom was hacked on Monday.
Information from RPS said a group of middle school students and staff experienced “the disturbing incident”. It’s unknown who took control of the program and displayed graphic content. The post on the district website and its Facebook page said “we are deeply disturbed by this incident”, and said the district is investigating.
The post said the teacher leading the class discussion had followed safety protocols for online lessons and was unable to control the screen once it got hacked. It said the district wants to “reiterate our unequivocal commitment to keeping students safe and ensuring that the distance learning is positive and effective”. Out of an abundance of caution, all planned Zoom lessons have been suspended until the district can verify that this will not happen again. If necessary, the district will look for other platforms that can guarantee security and may evaluate whether it continues using online classroom tools that involve live streaming, according to the post.
It said “there is no excuse for this type of incident to occur”.