Tag: Public School

Ransomware attack shuts down Evanston Township High School campus

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The FBI is investigating a cybersecurity at Evanston Township High School that has closed down the whole campus Monday morning. A ransomware attack is hitting the district’s phone lines, internet services and computers, and impacting the school’s emergency notification and public address systems. “Because these systems are not fully operational, we made the determination to cancel summer school classes and other on-campus activities until we can restore access to a point where we can safely run school,” said district spokesperson Reine Hanna.

A popup on the Evanston Township High School website announced that summer school, sports camps, and on-campus activities are canceled due to the ransomware attack that happened on Sunday. Hanna told CBS News Chicago that they have not yet received a money demand for the attack, but it’s “part of the investigation and response process.” “Because this happened in the summer months, the impact is substantially less than it would’ve been during the regular school year,” she said. She said the disruption means staff may have limited access to their email and student accounts may not work.

Phone systems are also unavailable. She said the breach is causing a major disruption for students and teachers that do need to access the school building, who will not be able to for at least two days. Staff members that were scheduled to come in to work Monday have been told to stay home and work remotely. A school spokesperson said their IT team discovered the breach. An email sent to parents, students and staff Sunday night assured the community that the hack is being handled. Cybersecurity attorneys and forensic experts are on the case, and the FBI is investigating. The district’s superintendent said the school is still working to figure out what information the hackers may have accessed, and said, “recovery efforts are under way.”

Source: Ransomware attack shuts down Evanston Township High School campus – CBS Chicago

Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
Deuteronomy 7:9

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Calls for an end to the sexualisation of children in schools

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The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) has called for an end to the sexualisation of children in schools and has denounced plans for a “summer of sex” at Westminster. C4M pointed to official guidelines on sex education as well as some concerning cases that suggest many children are being exposed to inappropriate material and are being indoctrinated into a certain view of sex and sexuality. According to government guidelines children as young as three can be taught about where babies come from, while from age five they can be taught that same gender parents are the equivalent of opposite gender parents.

At age 12 they can be taught that it is their right to have sex, despite it being illegal to do so until age 16. Richard Lucas, leader of the Scottish Family Party, told C4M that such material “corrupts young minds”, adding that such education rarely, if ever, mentions marriage as the proper and most stable framework within which sexual relations can take place. C4M reports that sex education has sometimes gone so far that even secular authorities have felt the need to intervene. It pointed to a school on the Isle of Man, which in 2023 suspended sex education after 11-year-old children were allegedly traumatised by lessons that covered oral and anal sex, how an artificial penis can be created for a sex change operation, and the number of genders there supposedly are.

In one incident, a drag queen allegedly sent an upset child out of class after the child insisted there are two genders, rather than the 73 being claimed by the drag queen. The school later said that the pupil had been temporarily removed from the room by a teacher, not the drag queen, and not because of the guest speaker’s conversation about inclusion but to remind the pupil that they did “not have to agree with the guest speaker” but “must show respect”. C4M has also taken issue with plans this summer by Labour MP Samantha Niblett to launch a “summer of sex” in collaboration with Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, which, despite the name, is in fact a pornography website.

MakeLoveNotPorn claims to differ from “traditional” pornography by featuring ordinary people having sex as opposed to professional “performers”. Gallop also runs a sex education site which is aimed at ages “0 to 18 and beyond”. Dr Tony Rucinski, Director of Supporter Strategy at C4M, suggested that the “summer of sex” was yet more evidence of the mainstreaming of inappropriate sexual material in public. The Christian Institute has also hit out at the plans, with spokesperson Angus Saul saying: “Explaining to children and other young people that pornography presents a distorted view of relationships is a laudable objective, but this campaign is only going to give a very mixed message by suggesting that some porn is good and some is bad.

“This will only confuse people further, and will surely detract from the work going on elsewhere to limit children’s access to pornography and reverse the damage this material has wreaked on society.”

Source: Calls for an end to the sexualisation of children in schools – Christian Today

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise child will delight in him.
Proverbs 23:24

Plague in Russia?

Russian authorities have sought to allay global worries over the death of a young woman who worked at a Siberian anti-plague laboratory. But moves to isolate her…

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Denver Public Schools considering banning cellphones during school hours

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Denver Public Schools is now considering a bell-to-bell policy, which would mean students wouldn’t be able to use their cellphones, not even during passing periods and lunch. It would also include other personal devices such as laptops, smartwatches, and wireless earbuds to prevent students from working around the phone ban. All Colorado school districts must establish their own cellphone policies according to law.

“We all just realized, once you know better, you need to do better,” said Sarah Almy Moore, a DPS parent and a member of the Communication Devices Advisory Committee tasked with creating the cellphone policy recommendation for the school board. “We heard from a lot of different people,” she said. The committee spoke with and heard from hundreds of students, teachers, parents, and even members of the school safety team when doing the research. “There’s 17 states that have implemented a bell-to-bell ban on devices,” Almy Moore said. “So this is not like a groundbreaking thing.

Source: Denver Public Schools considering banning cellphones during school hours – CBS Colorado

Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Luke 12:32

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Cyberattack shutters Canvas learning platform for schools across the U.S.

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A system that thousands of schools and universities use was offline Thursday due to a cyberattack, creating chaos as students tried to study for finals and underscoring education’s dependence on technology. The hacking group named ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach at Instructure, the company behind the learning management system Canvas, said Luke Connolly, a threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emisoft. CBS News has reached out to Instructure for comment. Late Thursday night, Instructure posted to a status log that Canvas was “now available for most users.”

Some of the universities that have reported being targeted include Penn State, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Columbia University and Union College New Jersey. UCLA was among several California schools that reported being crippled by the outage. Also impacted in the Chicago area were Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Illinois. In a message to students, Penn State said that “no one has access” to Canvas, and a “resolution” was not expected “within the next 24 hours.” The school said all tests scheduled for Thursday and Friday in its Pollock Testing Center were canceled. The student newspaper at Harvard reported that the system was down there, too. And public school districts also sought to reassure parents, with officials in Spokane, Washington, writing that they aren’t “aware of any sensitive data contained in this breach.” Canvas is used to manage grades, course notes, assignments, lecture videos and more. The hacking group posted online that nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were affected, with billions of private messages and other records accessed, Connolly said.

Source: Cyberattack shutters Canvas learning platform for schools across the U.S. – CBS News

Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
James 1:3

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Former Miami-Dade high school teacher charged with multiple counts of battery, placed on house arrest

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A former Miami-Dade County Public Schools teacher is facing serious criminal charges after authorities say he was accused of multiple counts of battery involving students. According to court records, 53-year-old Rudolph Infante, a teacher at Miami Southridge Senior High School, has been charged with four counts of battery and one count of an offense against students by an authority figure.  Details surrounding the alleged incidents remain limited, but Infante appeared in bond court, where a judge imposed strict conditions on his release. Judge orders restrictions, attorney raises concerns During the hearing, a judge ordered Infante to stay away from the alleged victim and prohibited him from being near any schools.

His attorney pushed back on the restrictions, arguing they could be overly burdensome if a medical emergency were to occur. “I’m just saying that issuing a stay-away order that means he’d have to be 500 feet away from every single school in the county,” the attorney argued in court.  The judge ultimately upheld the conditions. Infante has since posted bond and is currently on house arrest, according to court proceedings. 

Source: Former Miami-Dade high school teacher charged with multiple counts of battery, placed on house arrest – CBS Miami

Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, But righteousness delivers from death.
Proverbs 10:2