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Montgomery County resident Joel Schwarz is a lawyer and father of four. His family has been learning to juggle newfound educational needs that come with online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While his family adapts to distance learning, he worries about the safety of his and other kids as they spend more time in front of the computer. He isn’t alone.
Montgomery County Public Schools has adopted Zoom as one of its primary modes of educating students during the public health crisis. The platform, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., has blown up in the past few months, attracting over 200 million additional daily meeting participants between December 2019 and March 2020.
With unprecedented growth comes unforeseen problems.
“Zoombombings,” or breaking into meetings to harass attendees, became a major issue at the beginning of the public health crisis as government and business meetings struggled to move on to the platform. And while parents are concerned about the content that their students may become exposed to, they are also worried about the content that they may be unwittingly creating.
“There are a lot of community members who are concerned that Zoom has no privacy policy written specifically to protect students — and even more specifically, kids under 13,” said Lisa Cline.
