Officials take action after Easthampton High School virtual classes are ‘Zoom bombed’

Sept. 23, 2020 | Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.com

EASTHAMPTON – After incidents in which virtual classrooms used by Easthampton High School were infiltrated during the first week, Principal Bill Evans said the school and the district are taking steps to ensure the safety and privacy of students and staff.

Parents received notification from Evans of “a couple of unfortunate incidents” in which individuals who were not school staff or students gained access to Zoom classrooms by using the names of students in order to create disruptions.

“They said inappropriate things or showed inappropriate images before the teachers were able to remove them from the meeting,” Evans said in his email to parents. “I will say that in one incident, while I was in the class, an interloper revealed themselves and it was clearly an older person – not one of our students.”

These activities, commonly refered to as “Zoom bombing,”?are not uncommon.

Recently, Reminder Publishing reported a similar incident involving an August joint meeting of the school committees of the Hampshire Regional School District in which pornographic sounds effects were heard, racist messages were written in the chat feature, and infiltrators asked for the home address of then-Superintendent Aaron Osborne.

Evans told Reminder Publishing that efforts to increase classroom security and provide support have already begun.

“We continue to work with the teachers whose classes were impacted to offer guidance on communication, controls, and safeguards,” he said. “We have reviewed our settings and procedures for virtual learning and made changes where advisable.”

He added, “We have involved others outside of EHS as resources to support our efforts to ensure a safe and welcoming environment in classes.”

School administration also met with its counseling staff to create a plan on how best to support students, according to Evans, and families and that the school reached out directly to those affected by the disruptions “to listen and support.”

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