The U.S. Department of Education is accepting applications through Oct. 3, 2022, for its Project Prevent Grant Program, which will award $6.8 million to about a dozen local educational agencies impacted by community violence to “expand their capacity to implement community- and school-based strategies to help prevent community violence and mitigate the impacts of exposure to community violence.”
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 09/12/22
Though Los Angeles Unified School District leaders framed last weekend's ransomware attack and response as "unprecedented," cybersecurity research shows the only things "unprecedented" were the immediate federal assistance LAUSD received in mitigating the damage and the international press attention — most districts have to fend for themselves, and experts say it's long past time for federal lawmakers to institute real change.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 09/08/22
A new report shines a stark light on the state of education technology in the United States. Among the findings: There's inadequate funding for information security and ineffective use of technology tools in schools, at least from the perspective of state education leaders, according to a new report issued today by the State Educational Technology Director's Association (SETDA) in collaboration with Whiteboard Advisors.
A ransomware attack over Labor Day weekend brought to a standstill the online systems of Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest K–12 district in the country with about 640,000 students, LAUSD officials confirmed this morning in a statement on its website.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 09/06/22
A joint Cybersecurity Advisory released today by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center — as those agencies help investigate the Labor Day weekend ransomware attack on Los Angeles Unified School District — warns that Vice Society threat actors are disproportionately targeting the education sector as recently as this month.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 09/06/22
School safety software provider Raptor Technologies and emergency notification software provider Alertus Technologies said this week they will integrate their solutions to enhance security for K–12 schools and districts using Raptor solutions.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 08/10/22
The Future of Privacy Forum on Monday announced it has removed Illuminate Education from the nonprofit’s list of Student Privacy Pledge signatories — the first time a company has been de-listed from the voluntary data protection pledge — and said it sent its decision and supporting facts to federal and state authorities for potential legal action against the ed tech company.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 08/09/22
In an open letter this week to U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon, 15 education, technology, and civil rights nonprofits called for the department to put schools and online activity monitoring providers on notice that such monitoring must not result in discrimination or violation of students’ civil rights and liberties.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 08/03/22
School cybersecurity nonprofit K12 Security Information Exchange is holding a free professional development webinar, “The Long Tail of K–12 Cyber Incident Response and Recovery,” for education sector IT practitioners on Aug. 16, featuring an extended case study of Northshore School District’s response and recovery work following a crippling ransomware attack targeting the Washington district in 2019.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 08/03/22
K–12 cloud-based software provider PowerSchool today launched a new Data-as-a-Service platform called Connected Intelligence that aims to unify, integrate, protect, and analyze school districts’ data from all sources as well as external data that impacts educators' decision-making such as labor market information, according to a news release.
- By Kristal Kuykendall
- 08/01/22