Pittsburgh Public Schools has blocked student access to a website that billed itself as offering safe content for children after a teacher posted a link to a video that turned out to contain “inappropriate” content.
“This morning, we took immediate action upon notification of an inappropriate video that was embedded in the link of an educational video on Safe YouTube,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said in a statement, referring to the site SafeYouTube.net, which bills itself as a free website aiming to prevent exactly this sort of incident, enabling viewers “to watch and share YouTube videos in a pure atmosphere ... without being drawn to any unrelated or offensive videos or comments.”
That didn’t happen in this case, Mr. Hamlet said.
“A teacher posted the link in an early childhood classroom dashboard on Schoology,” he said. “The link, which was supposed to contain a counting nursery rhyme, included inappropriate content. This is unacceptable.”
The district has blocked access indefinitely to SafeYouTube.net from district-issued devices.
“Even as educators, we are still learning ourselves and vow to continually make sure cyber security is a priority,” he said, encouraging parents and staff to be vigilant. “If you see something, say something. We are here to make E-Learning accessible and digitally responsible for all families.”
The statement did not indicate how the link was connected to the offensive video, but Mr. Hamlet cited reports of other cyberattacks hitting schools across the nation.
The incident involved an early childhood lesson at Pittsburgh Minadeo, and the district learned about it from a Facebook post by a parent who discovered the problem, district spokeswoman Merecedes Williams said. The link had originally connected to the nursery-rhyme video, and the teacher was unaware the link had been taken over to direct users to the inappropriate video.
It wasn’t the only technical issue that school districts have had with online learning since the start of the new school year.
Trinity Area School District on Wednesday reported a security breach in a fifth-grade cyberclassroom at Trinity West Elementary, according to Post-Gazette news partner KDKA-TV.
According to district superintendent Michael P. Lucas, a “hacker” accessed the virtual classroom and was “able to introduce offensive racial and other inappropriate comments.” The district is still investigating the incident.
Staff writer Lauren Lee contributed.
First Published: September 9, 2020, 10:30 p.m.
Updated: September 9, 2020, 10:46 p.m.
