Berkeley Public Schools Superintendent’s Update On Video Conferencing

Press release from Berkeley Public Schools:

April 10, 2020

Dear Berkeley Students, Families, and Staff,

I’m writing with an update to the video conferencing portion of our BUSD Distance Learning Plan, and to follow up on a few of the questions posed in our online Town Hall last night.

As you know, on Tuesday we suffered an incident of Zoombombing in a class session at Berkeley High School. The event was serious enough to cause real concern about the safety of our students, and I asked for a temporary halt to live interaction on Zoom and other video conferencing platforms to conduct further review of our security protocols. I recognize that this decision caused a lot of disruption to a plan that had only started the day before, and resulted in intense frustration and disappointment for students, families and staff.

Video Conferencing

In light of the ongoing risk of intrusion into Zoom sessions, it is clear that our district-endorsed video conferencing platform must include something called “participant identity authentication – in addition to a unique code or password for the meeting. This permits teachers to know with certainty that each meeting participant is actually who they are expecting.

To accomplish this additional layer of security, I am modifying the use of video conferencing technology in BUSD in the following ways, effective Monday, April 13:

Until further notice, the use of Zoom will not be permitted for student instruction at any level because of the current inability of the Zoom platform to authenticate user accounts for students under the age of 18.

Starting on Monday, April 13, teachers are permitted to schedule video conferences with their students, but only using Google Meet. Because BUSD already supports student user authentication in Google, this will ensure that the individual identity of each Google Meet participant has been authenticated.

Zoom continues to be permissible for BUSD educators and staff use when no student is involved. This includes staff and department meetings, other team meetings, and meetings with other non-BUSD adults.

Please know that we are in direct conversation with Zoom programmers about the importance of Zoom participant identity authentication. We have assurances from the company that they will work to resolve this issue. We expect to learn more from them next week, and we will communicate more with teachers and families if this issue with Zoom is resolved.

I also acknowledge that Google Meet currently lacks several of the features in Zoom that educators have expressed that they prefer. However, in the balance between student safety and technical features, I must opt for the safer of these two technologies and right now, this is clearly Google Meet.

In addition, I am providing this guidance to teachers about hosting video conferencing sessions with students:

1. Smaller groups of students are better, especially as teachers are getting familiar with video conferencing technology. At the high school, no group should exceed a standard class size.
2. At Berkeley High School, teachers should host office hours in keeping with the school’s schedule for office hours, which is organized right now by subject area.

Principals, counselors, and other support staff are asked to provide assistance with this plan by identifying students and families who need help to access technology.

Help Resources for Online Learning

There are several help resources available to students and families.

• For help using a Chromebook, please email: chromebookhelp@berkeley.net
• For other distance learning help, please email: distancelearning@berkeley.net
• For limited time free or reduced cost internet: see these resources.

You may also reach out to your student’s teacher, or principal, in the event your student requires additional help.

Our somewhat bumpy start to using videoconferencing as one element of our BUSD Distance Learning Plan signals to us that all of these online technologies come with risks for our students and educators. The rapid expanded use of these platforms to work with students has brought an entirely new set of issues that were simply not considered as part of their original design. For the foreseeable future, parents and caregivers are cautioned that the use of live conferencing technology comes with risk, and that not all of this risk can be controlled by the district and teachers.

Town Hall Follow-Up

I want to thank each one of you who tuned in to our virtual Town Hall last night. The video recording of the meeting has been uploaded to the BUSD YouTube channel, linked here, and the slides are linked here.

We have had hundreds of questions, mostly about BUSD’s Distance Learning Plan and about access to real time instruction. I’ve addressed the biggest question in this letter – about our online platform – and in my next communication will provide answers to additional questions. There were about 15 big themes, including grades, graduation, summer school, enrollment/ registration, school facilities construction, public health guidance on reopening, support for IEPs, for 504’s, for Special Education, for English Learners and for TWI, supporting students who may fall behind, how families can support schools and each other, and more.

Before this letter gets to be too long, let me at least address the grading issue. In my next communication, I’ll pull together a set of FAQs to share with you on the other big topics.

Grading

Grading for all students in Grades 6-12 will shift from letter grades to a “Pass/No Pass” system for the second semester of this school year. Teachers will give assignments, collect these assignments, and offer feedback, and at their discretion may continue to give points for assignments and utilize other features of their regular grading system. However, report card marks will only reflect that a student has either passed or not passed the class for the semester. Grade Point Average (GPA) calculations will not be negatively affected by the use of Pass/No Pass grades. Teachers may continue to give exams and other assessments, but are advised to account for the inequitable learning conditions that the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated.

I wish every one of you safety and health in this very trying time. We are experiencing a profound crisis as a community; every day I hear heart-wrenching stories from our students and families about job loss, full-time child care obligations for older students, families with essential workers and frontline workers, and families with high-risk loved ones. I’m also hearing heartening stories of resilience, compassion, creativity, and caring that assure me that we will come through this together. We’ll continue to do everything we can to be a strong partner in these exceptional times.

Sincerely,

Brent Stephens, Ed.D.
Superintendent

This press release was produced by Berkeley Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.