UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — Brandi Carpenter-Hooks was shocked to hear the audio her seventh-grade daughter recorded during an online class hosted on Zoom on the second day of school in Prince George's County.
"At that point, the class was already disengaged to what [the teacher] was talking about, because they're laughing and some of them were also being very shocked," Carpenter-Hooks said. "It's vulgar. It's disheartening."
Carpenter-Hooks said the class had been interrupted by someone who screen-shared vulgar images and made foul-mouthed comments as a teacher could be heard trying to cut the disrupter off.
She was among those sharing her experiences on a Facebook Group for Prince George's County parents.
"The kids posted it all over Instagram," one dismayed parent wrote.
It appears that students are sharing the Zoom ID codes needed to enter a virtual class so that others can get in and disrupt, according to Board of Education Member Edward Burroughs III.
Burroughs said his younger brother, who is a senior at Oxon Hill High School, witnessed one of the disruptions. He pointed out that online meeting platforms enable teachers to identify and block unknown people from entering a class.
"Today, we sent out guidance to every teacher on how to deal with that," Burroughs said. "There are several tools and security provisions that we have on our end, that we need to make sure that every teacher knows what to do and how to do it."
School administrators said teachers have been alerted.
"We have and will continue to share tips as well as protocol guidelines with our teachers regarding this matter," Prince George's County Public Schools spokesperson Gabrielle Brown said in a written statement. "To safeguard the learning environment, all teachers must utilize the 'waiting room' feature to grant only known persons access to the class. Teachers are also encouraged to use 'mute all' and other administrative features to control who shares their screen and virtual backgrounds, for example. By implementing these tools, we hope to mitigate these issues quickly."
The issue is national. One California mom shared her family's experience on Facebook.
In Prince George's County, Carpenter-Hooks said she is now trying to spend more time monitoring her two children's classes while they are underway, while also working remotely herself.