Ontario schools dealing with swearing and racial slurs in virtual classrooms

During ashort stint of remote learning in Ontario, some school boards are dealing with people entering virtual classrooms uninvited toswear, use racial slurs and share "disturbing and graphic images."

Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) in Windsor and Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) in Hamilton both had incidents in the past week.

GECDSB spokespersonScott Scantleburysaysa high school using Microsoft Teamsdealt with one brief "uninvited intrusion during a class last week" thatinvolved inappropriate language. He didn't have a full report of the incident, but said the schoolcontacted affected families.

Some people refer to it as "Zoom bombing," a reference to the video communication software called Zoom. There have been similar incidents in onlinevigils and provincial courts.

HWDSB says it's investigating a racist incident that took place in an onlineelementary school class last Thursday.

The board says someone got access to a CollegiateElementary School virtual classroomand "used anti-Black racial slurs and other inappropriate language, and shared disturbing and graphic images."

HWDSB spokesperson Shawn McKillop says theboard apologized for the incident and had social workers offering support.

The board says it also reported the incident to Hamilton Police Service, which says it'scontinuing to investigate.

The board also thought it was an isolated incident but it wasn't.

Second virtual class facedracial slurs

On Wednesday,Jeremy Reecesaid his daughter, a Grade 7 student at RidgemountElementary School, had a similar experience the day before the Collegiate incident.

He said a supply teacher was running the class when someone got into the virtual class room and started swearing and using racial slurs.

The board wasn't aware of the incident until receiving questions from CBC Hamilton on Friday.

The news prompted a letter from HWDSB tofamilies on Monday. The board said it was "closer to understanding these breaches did not come from an external source."

HWDSB didn't elaborate, but apologizedto families and students affected. It also said the incidents aren't common in remote learning, and educatorsare aware of enhanced security settings in MS Teams.

"We commit to our families that we will always take these online concerns seriously and support to students will always be available," the board said in the letter.

Police say they haven'treceived a report about this incident.

Parents are concerned

Reecesaysthe incident left him "concerned."

"What if somebody had come in and didn't do anything, didn't say anything, just sat there and listened and collected information on these kids?" he said.

Reece says he fears that a child predator could havesomehow gained access to the call.

Karen Louise Smith, an assistant professor at Brock University who researches online privacy, saysthere are some commonly recommended steps to prevent these incidents in Microsoft Teams. Thisincludes creating a lobby, which meansthe teacher approves every person who enters the virtual classroom.

"It's important to recognize that some of these 'fixes'are very labour intensive for teachers who are already busy trying to teach and engage their students during the Omicron wave of the pandemic," she saidin an email.

Expert says tech companies need to do more

Smith saysinstead of relying on teachers to moderate, software vendors should domore.

"Software companies who are providing cloud software like Office 365 to Ontario school boards really need to take responsibility to make security features simple and easy to use," she said.

Smith suggests an option that would restrict access to users with logins associated with a certain class.

Microsoft told CBC Hamilton in a statement it cares about the "trust and safety of our community of educators, learners and families, and work closely with our customers to address their concerns."

The companyofferstips to secure virtual classrooms and prevent uninvited guests from joining.

Some features include allowingthe meeting organizer to let in students, not allowing anyone to join over the phone, the ability to mute users and delete messages.

Microsoft'swebsite says more than 270,000 educational organizations use Microsoft Teams.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of.You can read more stories here.