Obscene content, racial slurs and screaming were just some of the interruptions young Long Beach School Unified students experienced on their second day of virtual school on Wednesday.
Parents posted about the intrusions on a parent-teacher Facebook group Thursday.
LBUSD parent Karen Aguilar said her cousin’s daughter’s class at Jefferson Middle School was canceled because they heard three men insulting the teacher and playing “inappropriate” sounds and playing explicit music.
Aguilar’s 10-year-old son, who attends Willard Elementary School, hasn’t experienced anything similar, but now the mother is on edge.
“It makes me feel like I have to be right next to my kid in class with him, and it’s something that we don’t want to do either because we don’t have that time,” Aguilar said.
Allison Kripp, parent of an 11-year-old attending Hughes Middle School, said someone used explicit language and made a racist comment in one of her daughter’s last classes during an interactive quiz. The teacher immediately kicked the person out.
“‘Stop talking!’” Kripp recalled her daughter saying during Wednesday’s class.
LBUSD spokesperson Chris Eftychiou wrote in an email that the district has not received these complaints directly, but urged parents who experienced isolated cases of Zoom intrusions to reach out to the district so they can verify if teachers are following security protocols.
“We have multiple layers of security for Zoom classes, and teachers have received training on these protocols,” Eftychiou wrote. “If there are any aberrations, then our people would like to know so that we can improve.”
Links to Zoom classes at several high schools, including Jordan, Wilson and Poly, were posted publicly on the schools’ website, however classes appeared to be protected through security passwords or use of waiting rooms, in which teachers would have to let someone in to the class.
Chris Callopy, Teachers Association of Long Beach executive director, said his organization was made aware of the “Zoom bombing” claims, and added that there was speculation that Zoom codes were published to help students and parents find classes. District officials could not confirm this.
These Zoom bombers weren’t unique to LBUSD.
East Long Beach parent Sarah Naccarato said her 13-year-old son, who attends Orange County School of the Arts, said that someone entered his Zoom class and started posting links to a pornography website. The teachers quickly shut it down, and now students all have individual passwords to enter classes.
“It happens,” she said, chuckling. “It’s all a learning curve for all of us, I guess.”