On their first day back to school, approximately 60 students at the Legacy Traditional School in Surprise, AZ were given a lesson that wasn’t on the class agenda.
ON THE MAP (#904): Surprise (AZ) children exposed to porn in virtual classroom https://t.co/vs7Dvyimwe #edtech #k12cybersecure #zoombombing
— The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center (@K12CyberMap) August 7, 2020
Tahnee Conner’s 12-year-old called out for his mom Wednesday, just an hour into his school day.
“He said, ‘Mommy, something weird is going on.’ So I walked over to the computer and all the little faces were popped up there and they all had this puzzled, well horrified, look on their face,” said Conner.
The mother also saw the R-rated video fill the screen:
“And the teacher, bless her heart, was trying the best she could. Like every time it popped up. She kept taking it off. But she couldn’t block the guy,” she said.
Eventually the Google Meet session was shut down.
School spokesperson Matthew Benson said that a student created a fake email address and duped the teacher into letting him in:
“Legacy Traditional Schools takes this situation seriously, and we have reinforced that students who fall short of our expectations for mature, respectful behavior will face disciplinary consequences. Our live, online teaching sessions will resume Thursday with enhanced cybersecurity measures in place.”
However, according to ABC15, the Google Meets room was not password protected, did not have any sharing or content restrictions and access was not linked to specific emails.
Principal Josh Leon also wrote to parents, “We have no reason to believe this was a Legacy student or that students were harmed in any way.”
Conner disagreed with that assessment:
“Just because they weren’t physically harmed doesn’t mean they weren’t harmed. That isn’t an image my son has ever seen before.”
She also questioned how this was able to happen so easily:
“I don’t want to fault the school, but it is kind of their fault for not thinking ahead. They’ve had all summer to do it.”
Conner also told ABC15 that other parents have witnessed cussing, lewd comments and dirty links shared in chatrooms as well.
