Online students blindsided by porn at a Manatee County charter school

Imagine School at Lakewood Ranch, a public charter school in Manatee County, is now investigating a link that directed students to pornography during their online class.

The eighth-grade students logged on to Google Meet for a social studies class on Thursday, when Tropical Storm Eta was passing and local schools were closed. Marisa Preuss, a spokeswoman for the charter school, confirmed the events that followed.

“While class was in session, 6-7 students clicked on a link which took them to a web stream that was broadcasting a pornographic website,” Preuss said in an email.

“A parent called the school principal, Selenia Quinones, who immediately notified the teacher and the class was ended,” she continued. “It is unclear what exactly students saw, but it appears that the link was only active for a brief period and was only seen by a few students.”

The link prompted confusion and disgust among students, according to a handful of screenshots depicting their reaction. The messages — recently obtained by the Bradenton Herald — began at 11:19 a.m. and the principal entered the chat room 20 minutes later, urging students to log off.

“My eyes are burning and I’m going to have really bad nightmares,” a student wrote.

“You hacked or what?” a classmate followed.

Preuss, the chief communications officer for Imagine Schools’ national office in Virginia, said it was not immediately clear who posted the link.

“Our IT team is investigating exactly how this occurred and determining who was behind it and/or whether the classroom was compromised/hacked by someone outside,” she wrote.

The school was also investigating how students were able to access the content. The campus uses GoGuardian to filter explicit content on school-issued devices, Preuss said.

In a follow-up email on Monday morning, she said the school’s technology team was working with people at Google Classroom and GoGuardian. The investigation was ongoing and could take several days.

This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Online students blindsided by porn at a Manatee County charter school."