Dear School Community:
My name is Ryan Reeves, and I am the Chief Operating Officer for Academica Nevada, the management company for your student’s charter school. We are proud of the effort and undertaking that our schools have done in continuing the education of Nevada students in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. The transition to distance education in such a short time frame has been nothing short of remarkable.
Weeks before the Covid-19 outbreak, Academica began working with each of the schools that we support to undertake preparations for virtual education in the event that it was needed. This included reserving thousands of professional Zoom account licenses for online learning. One of the reasons for purchasing the Zoom licenses in this manner was to ensure each account was setup with adequate security settings for the school environment. Prior to implementing the use of Zoom for distance education, precautions were taken to ensure the privacy and safety of students which included staff at each school being trained on how to operate all aspects of Zoom.
Recently, the FBI issued a security alert regarding online learning platforms. They did not recommend terminating the use of these programs. Indeed, to do so would be detrimental to the education of our students. Instead, they recommended certain safety protocol be followed, which include the following:
“As individuals continue the transition to online lessons and meetings, the FBI recommends exercising due diligence and caution in your cybersecurity efforts. The following steps can be taken to mitigate teleconference hijacking threats:
- Do not make meetings or classrooms public. In Zoom, there are two options to make a meeting private: require a meeting password or use the waiting room feature and control the admittance of guests.
- Do not share a link to a teleconference or classroom on an unrestricted publicly available social media post. Provide the link directly to specific people.
- Manage screensharing options. In Zoom, change screensharing to “Host Only.”
- Ensure users are using the updated version of remote access/meeting applications. In January 2020, Zoom updated their software. In their security update, the teleconference software provider added passwords by default for meetings and disabled the ability to randomly scan for meetings to join.
- Lastly, ensure that your organization’s telework policy or guide addresses requirements for physical and information security.”
Please be advised that we are assisting your school in following all of these protocols. Our Zoom accounts were all created using the most recent software. All teacher accounts are setup to require the use of the waiting room feature to control who enters a classroom/meeting, and we are now recommending that teachers utilize strict protocols in how students identify themselves in the waiting room. Teachers are being trained to ensure only they can share their computer screen with the other participants in the meeting. Through all of these safeguards, we hope to continue providing safe and secure learning environments for our students.
We appreciate your support as we continue to assist our schools in our efforts to provide the best education possible in these unprecedented circumstances. Should any issues arise we will adapt, just as we have done during this crisis. As always the safety of students is our top priority.
Sincerely,
Ryan Reeves
