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JCPS confirms some virtual classes disrupted on first day, explores other video options

The district said some middle and high school Google Meets were disrupted, resulting in some schools moving to recorded instruction for the rest of the week.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Jefferson County Public Schools confirmed it is exploring video conferencing systems outside of Google Meet after some middle and high school classrooms were disrupted on the first day of school.

JCPS spokesperson Renee Murphy said there were "isolated incidents" during live online instructions at some middle and high schools. Because of that, schools are allowed to provide recorded instruction or digital curriculum in place of live instruction.

"We want to assure parents that learning will continue through Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI)," Murphy said. "Students will still have access to all of their assignments through Google classroom and teachers will remain in frequent contact with students."

One JCPS parent told WHAS11 her eighth grader's classroom was hacked. She said her family received a letter from the school saying they would switch platforms by the end of the week.

Murphy said JCPS believes those who hacked into the classrooms were just students who may have been going to classrooms they were not assigned to, not people from outside the district. Murphy did confirm there was "inappropriate behavior" but did not go into specifics.

"We think we have the systems in place where we can identify the students that were involved in this so we're working on that process right now," Murphy said. "We recognize what happened yesterday and encourage our families to have a conversation with their students if they have a meeting code not to share it with anyone."

Isabella Powell, an eighth grader, said her class was hacked during the first day. Powell said a person hacked into the class, blasting inappropriate music and then others began saying inappropriate things to the teacher and shouting.

"We were just getting to know our teachers on the first day and we kept seeing random people pop up," Powell said.

In a letter to families, Southern High School Principal Dr. Tyler Shearon said the school would go to recorded instruction for the rest of the week after students entered online classrooms they were not assigned to and disrupted instruction.

"We are working to ensure we have a tight system that protects students and teachers in our current virtual setting," Shearon said.

Western Middle School, Farnsley Middle School and Southern High School are just three of the schools with confirmed hackings.

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