An anonymous reader quotes a report from Newshub: Victoria University of Wellington has accidentally deleted all files stored on its desktop computers affecting a "significant" number of staff members -- as well as some students. A spokesperson for the University confirmed to Newshub on Thursday that an unexpected issue wiped all files saved on the desktops. "The University's Digital Solutions team continues to work with all affected staff and students to recover access to files and in many cases the issues have been resolved," they said. "There are however, some affected staff and students who have not been able to recover access to files."

The aim of the data wipe was to clear inactive users' data by getting rid of profiles of students who no longer studied, reports student magazine Critic. Critic spoke to one Masters student who had heard of PHD students losing an entire year's worth of data. The university spokesperson said they apologized for the inconvenience caused and is investigating the issue to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Police have warned students in the UK against using the Sci-Hub website, which they say lets users "illegally access" millions of scientific research papers. Specifically, the police say the website could "pose a threat to their personal information and data." The BBC reports: The police are concerned that users of the "Russia-based website" could have information taken and misused online. The Sci-Hub says its website "removes all barriers" to science. It offers open access to more than 85 million scientific papers and claims that copyright laws should be abolished and that such material should be "knowledge to all." It describes itself as "the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers."

But Max Bruce, the City of London Police's cyber protection officer, has urged universities to block the website on their network because of the "threat posed by Sci-Hub to both the university and its students." "If you're tricked into revealing your log-in credentials, whether it's through the use of fake emails or malware, we know that Sci-Hub will then use those details to compromise your university's computer network in order to steal research papers," he said. "Students should be aware that accessing such websites is illegal, as it hosts stolen intellectual property," said Det Insp Kevin Ives. He warned that visitors to the website, whose Twitter account has been suspended, are "very vulnerable to having their credentials stolen."

Startups hope there's no turning back for online learning, even as more students return to the classroom. From a report: After a tough year of toggling between remote and in-person schooling, many students, teachers and their families feel burned out from pandemic learning. But companies that market digital learning tools to schools are enjoying a coronavirus windfall. Venture and equity financing for education technology start-ups has more than doubled, surging to $12.58 billion worldwide last year from $4.81 billion in 2019, according to a report from CB Insights, a firm that tracks start-ups and venture capital. During the same period, the number of laptops and tablets shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States nearly doubled to 26.7 million, from 14 million, according to data from Futuresource Consulting, a market research company in Britain. "We've seen a real explosion in demand," said Michael Boreham, a senior market analyst at Futuresource. "It's been a massive, massive sea change out of necessity."

But as more districts reopen for in-person instruction, the billions of dollars that schools and venture capitalists have sunk into education technology are about to get tested. Some remote learning services, like videoconferencing, may see their student audiences plummet. "There's definitely going to be a shakeout over the next year," said Matthew Gross, the chief executive of Newsela, a popular reading lesson app for schools. "I've been calling it 'The Great Ed Tech Crunch.'" Yet even if the ed-tech market contracts, industry executives say there is no turning back. The pandemic has accelerated the spread of laptops and learning apps in schools, they say, normalizing digital education tools for millions of teachers, students and their families. "This has sped the adoption of technology in education by easily five to 10 years," said Michael Chasen, a veteran ed-tech entrepreneur who in 1997 co-founded Blackboard, now one of the largest learning management systems for schools and colleges. "You can't train hundreds of thousands of teachers and millions of students in online education and not expect there to be profound effects."

Too many young people around the world are excluded from accessing the web, and getting them online should be a priority for the post-Covid era, Tim Berners-Lee has said. From a report: In a letter published to mark the 32nd birthday of the web, its founder says the opportunity "to reimagine our world and create something better" in the aftermath of Covid-19 must be channelled to getting internet access to the third of people aged between 15 and 24 who are offline. "The influence of young people is felt across their communities and online networks," Berners-Lee writes. "But today we're seeing just a fraction of what's possible. Because while we talk about a generation of 'digital natives,' far too many young people remain excluded and unable to use the web to share their talents and ideas.

"A third of young people have no internet access at all. Many more lack the data, devices and reliable connection they need to make the most of the web. In fact, only the top third of under-25s have a home internet connection, according to Unicef, leaving 2.2 billion young people without the stable access they need to learn online, which has helped so many others continue their education during the pandemic." Even though young people are more likely than the typical global citizen to have internet access -- roughly half the world is online, but the figure rises to 70% of people aged between 15 and 25 -- Berners-Lee argues that aiming to connect every young person in the world to the web would reap dividends. He also says doing so would be relatively cheap compared with the cost of many government programmes launched over the last 12 months. He estimates that an investment of $428bn over the next decade would provide everyone with a quality broadband connection.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: At least 30,000 organizations across the United States -- including a significant number of small businesses, towns, cities and local governments -- have over the past few days been hacked by an unusually aggressive Chinese cyber espionage unit that's focused on stealing email from victim organizations, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity. The espionage group is exploiting four newly-discovered flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server email software, and has seeded hundreds of thousands of victim organizations worldwide with tools that give the attackers total, remote control over affected systems.

In each incident, the intruders have left behind a "web shell," an easy-to-use, password-protected hacking tool that can be accessed over the Internet from any browser that gives the attackers administrative access to the victim's computer servers. Speaking on condition of anonymity, two cybersecurity experts who've briefed U.S. national security advisors on the attack told KrebsOnSecurity the Chinese hacking group thought to be responsible has seized control over "hundreds of thousands" of Microsoft Exchange Servers worldwide -- with each victim system representing approximately one organization that uses Exchange to process email. Microsoft said the Exchange flaws are being targeted by a previously unidentified Chinese hacking crew it dubbed "Hafnium," and said the group had been conducting targeted attacks on email systems used by a range of industry sectors, including infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks, and NGOs. Microsoft's initial advisory about the Exchange flaws credited Reston, Va. based Volexity for reporting the vulnerabilities. "We've worked on dozens of cases so far where web shells were put on the victim system back on Feb. 28 [before Microsoft announced its patches], all the way up to today," Volexity President Steven Adair said. "Even if you patched the same day Microsoft published its patches, there's still a high chance there is a web shell on your server. The truth is, if you're running Exchange and you haven't patched this yet, there's a very high chance that your organization is already compromised."

A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement: "The best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems. We continue to help customers by providing additional investigation and mitigation guidance. Impacted customers should contact our support teams for additional help and resources."

Students are using HDMI cables and hidden phones to cheat on exams administered through invasive proctoring software like Proctorio. From a report: "I've taken online exams cheating and not cheating and they are just about as stressful anyways so fuck it, am I right?" That's what one French student who had cheated on multiple remote exams administered through the popular digital proctoring software Proctorio told Motherboard in a voice message. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to rage around the globe and no quick end to remote learning in sight, many students have found themselves taking exams under the watch of proctoring software like Proctorio, which surveils students through algorithmic systems that, among other things, detect eye movements, track keyboard strokes, and monitor audio inputs. Universities sometimes shell out thousands of dollars per exam for Proctorio, which helps at least give the impression that academic integrity is being maintained during remote learning. But for some students using Proctorio and other online proctoring services is invasive and anxiety-inducing, subjecting them and their surroundings to unwarranted surveillance that is difficult to refuse without their studies being negatively affected.

Yet, despite the fact that popular online proctoring platforms like Proctorio claim that they use "state-of-the-art technology" and "ensure the total learning integrity of every assessment, every time," students are cheating on their exams anyway. Motherboard spoke to 10 university students from various countries who claimed to have cheated on exams where Proctorio was in place. While their motivations and techniques varied, there was one common denominator: none of them got caught. The relative ease with which the students cheated, and the fact that each student could point to multiple peers who had done the same (one American student estimated that 90 percent of her class had cheated), raises the question of how effective online proctoring software like Proctorio actually is -- and whether it is worth the hefty price tag or the invasion of privacy. "With Proctorio obviously you need to show yourself and your room with the computer's webcam," one Dutch student who had helped a friend cheat on a multiple choice exam told Motherboard. "My friend put a phone on a stand on his keyboard so it couldn't be seen during the room and desk sweep. Then we FaceTimed with me at the other end," she continued. "The phone was at a slant so he could see me and I could see the exam. Then I would just hold up a flashcard with a, b, c, or d." Another French student used a 10-meter HDMI cable that ran from his laptop to a TV screen in another room that mirrored his screen. His friend would then look up the exam answers and send it via WhatsApp to his phone, which was also on the keyboard and out of sight of the webcam. "Worked perfectly and got a good grade," he said.

France's ranks of amateur astronomers have been urged to help find an apricot-size meteorite that fell to Earth last weekend in the south-west of the country. From a report: The rock, estimated to weigh 150 grams (just over five ounces), was captured plunging through the atmosphere by cameras at an astronomy education facility in Mauraux, and landed at exactly 10.43pm on Saturday near Aiguillon, about 100km (62 miles) from Bordeaux. The site is part of the Vigie-Ciel (Sky Watch) project of around 100 cameras in the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network (FRIPON), which aims to detect and collect the 10 or so meteorites that fall on France each year.

"Meteorites are relics of the solar system's creation, with the benefit of never being exposed to the elements," said Mickael Wilmart of the A Ciel Ouvert (Open Sky) astronomy education association that operates the Mauraux observatory. "A fresh meteorite like this, which fell just a few days ago, hasn't been altered by the Earth's environment and therefore contains very precious information for scientists," he said.

theodp writes: Amazon on Wednesday announced it has lined up the support of Governors and State School Superintendents from five 'key states' for a pilot that aims to reimagine the Java-based Advanced Placement Computer Science A (AP CS A) course taken by high school students for college credit. By doing so, Amazon indicated it hopes to address "the diversity gaps in today's technology workforce."

From the press release: "Amazon's signature computer science education program, Amazon Future Engineer, is trying to help close those gaps by donating $15 million to Code.org over three years. The money will support the creation of the new equity-minded curriculum and other initiatives designed to reach more students from underrepresented groups. The initiatives aim to increase student awareness of academic and career pathways in computer science as well as equip them to be successful in college-level computer science and beyond. Working together, we have our eyes set on an ambitious goal of doubling the participation of students from underrepresented groups in AP CSA within five years of the course's launch."

After CEO Jeff Bezos came under fire [PDF] last summer for the company's continued resistance to making its EEO-1 diversity regulatory filing public, Amazon finally agreed to publicly disclose its race, gender and ethnicity workforce data sometime in 2021.

The FCC has taken a major step toward offering financial support for people struggling to pay broadband bills during the pandemic. If approved, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program could provide $50 per month to millions of households, and more in tribal lands. From a report: The EBBP was created in the budget passed by Congress earlier this year, which earmarked $3.2 billion to offset the cost of broadband in households already struggling to make ends meet. "From work to healthcare to education, this crisis has made it clear that without an internet connection too many households are locked out of modern life," said acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement. "It's more apparent than ever that broadband is no longer nice-to-have. It's need-to-have. But too many of us are struggling to afford this critical service."

The general shape of the EBBP was already known, but since Congress first proposed it last year it has been up to the FCC to decide what it would actually look like. The rules for the program Rosenworcel circulated at the agency today are an important step in taking it from idea to reality. The important bit is spelling out exactly who qualifies for the benefit -- to wit, anyone who:
1. Qualifies for the FCC's existing Lifeline connectivity subsidy program
2. Receives free and reduce-price school lunch or breakfast benefits
3. Received a Pell Grant
4. Meets other eligibility requirements for internet providers' existing low-income or pandemic-related programs
5. "Experienced a substantial loss of income since February 29, 2020"

The first church of artificial intelligence has shut its conceptual doors. From a report: Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who avoided an 18-month prison sentence after receiving a presidential pardon last month, has closed the church he created to understand and accept a godhead based on artificial intelligence. The Way of the Future church, which Levandowski formed in 2015, was officially dissolved at the end of the year, according to state and federal records. However, the process had started months before in June 2020, documents filed with the state of California show. The entirety of the church's funds -- exactly $175,172 -- were donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. The nonprofit corporation's annual tax filings with the Internal Revenue Service show it had $175,172 in its account as far back as 2017. Levandowski told TechCrunch that he had been considering closing the church long before the donation. The Black Lives Matter movement, which gained momentum over the summer following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, influenced Levandowski to finalize what he had been contemplating for a while. He said the time was right to put the funds to work in an area that could have an immediate impact. "I wanted to donate to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund because it's doing really important work in criminal justice reform and I know the money will be put to good use," Levandowski told TechCrunch.

Way of the Future sparked interest and controversy -- much like Levandowski himself -- from the moment it became public in a November 2017 article in Wired. It wasn't just the formation of the church or its purpose that caused a stir in Silicon Valley and the broader tech industry. The church's public reveal occurred as Levandowski was steeped in a legal dispute with his former employer Google. He had also become the central figure of a trade secrets lawsuit between Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that is now a business under Alphabet, and Uber. The engineer was one of the founding members in 2009 of the Google self-driving project also known as Project Chauffeur and had been paid about $127 million by the search engine giant for his work, according to court documents. In 2016, Levandowski left Google and started self-driving truck startup Otto with three other Google veterans: Lior Ron, Claire Delaunay and Don Burnette. Uber acquired Otto less than eight months later.

Pfizer and BioNTech "have asked the U.S. health regulator to relax requirements for their COVID-19 vaccine to be stored at ultra-low temperatures, potentially allowing it to be kept in pharmacy freezers," reports Reuters, which adds that approval "could send a strong signal to other regulators around the world that may ease distribution of the shot in lower-income countries."

Slashdot reader FrankOVD shares more information from TechCrunch: Originally, the mRNA-based vaccine had to be maintained at ultra-low temperatures throughout the transportation chain in order to remain viable — between -76F and -112F... To date, the vaccine has relied largely on existing "cold-chain" infrastructure to be in place in order for it to be able to reach the areas where it's being used to inoculate patients... This development is just one example of how work continues on the vaccines that are already being deployed under emergency approvals by health regulators across the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Pfizer and BioNTech say they're working on bringing those storage temp requirements down even further, so they could potentially approach the standard set by the Moderna jab....

The new requirements open up participation to a whole host of potential new players in supporting delivery and distribution — including ride-hailing and on-demand delivery players with large networks like Amazon, which has offered President Biden's administration its support, and Uber, which is already teamed up with Moderna on vaccine education programs. This also opens the door for participation from a range of startups and smaller companies in both the logistics and the care delivery space that don't have the scale or the specialized equipment to be able to offer extreme "cold-chain" storage.

Josiah Elleston-Burrell had done everything to make his dream of studying architecture a reality. But, suddenly, in the pandemic summer of 2020, he found his fate was no longer in his hands -- and began a determined battle to reclaim his future. From a long read at The Guardian: The algorithm did what it was supposed to do. Humans, in the end, had no stomach for what it was supposed to do. Algorithms don't go rogue, they don't go on mutant rampages, they only sometimes reveal and amplify the cruddy human biases that underpin them. Ofqual's mistake was to think this exercise -- which made plain our usual tricks for filtering and limiting young lives -- would be morally tolerable as it played out in public view.

schwit1 writes: With a pair of votes, Maryland can now claim to be a pioneer: it's the first place in the country that will impose a tax on the sale of online ads. The House of Delegates and Senate both voted this week to override Gov. Larry Hogan's veto of a bill passed last year to levy a tax on online ads. The tax will apply to the revenue companies like Facebook and Google make from selling digital ads, and will range from 2.5% to 10% per ad, depending on the value of the company selling the ad. (The tax would only apply to companies making more than $100 million a year.)

Proponents say the new tax is simply a reflection of where the economy has gone, and an attempt to have Maryland's tax code catch up to it. The tax is expected to draw in an estimated $250 million a year to help fund an ambitious decade-long overhaul of public education in the state that's expected to cost $4 billion a year in new spending by 2030. (Hogan also vetoed that bill, and the Democrat-led General Assembly also overrode him this week.) Still, there remains the possibility of lawsuits to stop the tax from taking effect; Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh warned last year that "there is some risk" that a court could strike down some provisions of the bill over constitutional concerns.

theodp writes: The Nevada Legislature in 2014 approved a $1.3 billion tax break -- the largest tax break in the history of the state -- to woo Tesla into locating its battery factory in Northern NV. In return, Tesla made a $37.5 million pledge to support K-12 education ($7.5M annually, for 5 years, beginning in 2018). Lawmakers are now expressing surprise after learning that the NV Dept. of Education has no direct role in deciding which organizations receive the $37.5 million in donations pledged by Tesla.

Last month, the state's deputy superintendent for business and support services, informed lawmakers that Tesla "identifies the entities and the amounts those entities will receive." She described the NV Dept. of Education and its Education Gift Fund as merely an intermediary, raising eyebrows among some lawmakers who questioned the process used to determine what organizations received money. "To me it's symptomatic of how the state exists -- as an appendage to corporate affairs," said Bob Fulkerson, who heads the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "That's the reason for Nevada to exist. For corporations to make as much money as they can and pay as little as they can in taxes."

In 2019, Governor Steve Sisolak announced that Tesla would invest $1 million to support Nevada's computer science education initiatives as part of the company's statewide education investment. Sisolak made the announcement at The Mirage in Las Vegas during CSEdCon, a CS education conference hosted by the tech-bankrolled nonprofit Code.org. According to a spreadsheet provided to the Nevada Current by the NV Dept. of Education, Code.org received $761,540 from the initial two years of Tesla donations, while another $200,000 went to Girls Who Code.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Cindicator Capital is the kind of investment fund that relies on software and algorithms to model investment strategies based on any number of disparate factors. In the wake of the WallStreetBets subreddit throwing hedge funds into chaos and driving stock prices to non-sensical extremes, Cindicator has posted a job listing on LinkedIn hoping to hire one of the Redditors to conjure up some unintuitive data points.

The listing, for a Sentiment Trader, limits its search to applicants who have at least a year's active membership on WallStreetBets and at least 1,000 of Reddit's goodwill karma points. Job seekers should understand probabilities, but "higher education in economics or finance" is disqualifying. "In-depth knowledge" of the language of the finance world and its mechanisms is required. The rest of the listing gets more esoteric, saying prospects should display "unbiased thinking that defies authority," and they will spend most of their time "on Reddit, Discord chats, and Twitter to feel the pulse of the tens of millions of retail traders." Additionally, "a refined taste for memes and a sense of humour" is essential. The salary is $200,000 plus bonuses.

"The U.S. app Clubhouse erupted among Chinese social-media users over the weekend," reports Bloomberg, "with thousands joining discussions on contentious subjects...undisturbed by Beijing's censors." On the invite-only, audio-based social app where users host informal conversations, Chinese-speaking communities from around the world gathered to discuss China-Taiwan relations and the prospects of unification, and to share their knowledge and experience of Beijing's crackdown on Muslim Uighurs in the far west region of Xinjiang. Open discussion of such topics is off limits in China, where heavy government censorship is the norm...

On Friday night, a room attracted more than 4,000 people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait to share their stories and views on a range of topics including uniting the two sides. In another room on Saturday, several members of the Uighur ethnic community now living overseas shared their experience of events in Xinjiang, where China has rolled out a widely criticized re-education program that saw an estimated 1 million people or more put into camps...

"Thanks to Clubhouse I have the freedom and the audience to express my opinion," a Finland-based doctor and activist who goes by Halmurat Harri Uyghur told Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg spoke to Michael Norris, a research/strategy manager at a Shanghai-based consultancy, who said most Chinese Clubhouse users he'd spoken to are part of the tech/investment/marketing world. "Those who do engage in political discussion on Clubhouse take on a degree of personal risk," he said. "While most are aware Clubhouse records real names, phone numbers and voice, they are broadly unaware about recent cases in China involving interrogation and jail for errant posts on Twitter." Since Clubhouse so far is only accessible on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and users must have a non-Chinese Apple account, the app has only gained traction among a small cohort of educated citizens, according to Fang Kecheng, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "I don't think it can really reach the general public in China," he said. "If so, it will surely get blocked."
Reuters highlights the significance of the event: "I don't know how long this environment can last", said one user in a popular Weibo post that was liked over 65,000 times. "But I will definitely remember this moment in Internet history."

The Cornell Alliance for Science seeks to build "a significant international alliance of partners" to "correct misinformation and counter conspiracy theories" slowing progress on climate change, synthetic biology, agricultural innovations, and other issues.

This week Slashdot reader wooloohoo shared their report from Slyvia Tetteh, who works with Ghana's chamber of Agribusiness and serves as an intermediary to farmers: The advent of climate change, coupled with new plant pests and diseases, has worsened the plight of Ghanaian farmers, relegating them to remain in poverty as their crop yields and incomes plunge. Modern, climate-smart agricultural technologies, such as genetically modified crops (GMOs), can help combat these threats. However, scare-mongering and misinformation, which Ghanaians term "scarecrow," make farmers perceive such technology as white man's witchcraft. Since they see it unnatural, they are stuck with crude, unproductive farming methods — the "hoe."

The adoption of GM insect-resistant cowpea and nitrogen use-efficient rice could help farmers in Ghana to improve their yields, their incomes and their lives. These crops have been vetted and recommended by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Ghana. But regulatory delays that prevent farmers from accessing these improved seeds, and lingering fears about technology, may erode these benefits in both Ghana and Africa at large...

Achieving a hunger-free continent involves lots of education about available technology, training and efforts to change societal beliefs and mindsets regarding GM crops. There is still a lot of work to be done, and everyone's help is needed if Ghana and the rest of the continent are to embrace these breakthrough discoveries and contribute to making Africa the food basket of the world.

Global sales of cellular-enabled mobile PCs reached more than 10 million units for the first time in 2020 as home workers sought improved connectivity in response to the closure of office facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research firm Strategy Analytics: According to the latest analysis from Strategy Analytics' Connected Computing Devices program, global shipments increased by 70% to 10.1 million, the highest ever annual total. North America accounted for nearly half of 3G-, 4G- and 5G-enabled PC shipments, while Europe and Asia-Pacific accounted for 45%. The report, Notebook PC Cellular Connectivity Shipment and Installed Base Forecast, estimates that more than 26 million cellular-enabled PCs are now in use worldwide, an increase of 25% in twelve months.

While 4G/LTE standards dominated the market in 2020, accounting for 97% of cellular-enabled PC shipments, 5G notebook launches in 2021 are showing a greater diversity in price points, form factors, and vendor participation, and Strategy Analytics expects 5G to build its share towards 69% by 2025. The report indicates that this growth will depend on improvements in customer education by vendors, carriers and retailers.

More children have been absent from school this academic year than a year earlier, with attendance declining as the pandemic wears on, new research and data show. From a report: Students attending school in person as well as those learning remotely are struggling with poor attendance, though it is worse among the millions of homebound students who are still learning primarily through a screen. Districts showed a 2.3% decline in average daily attendance nationally from September to November of last year, compared with the same period in 2019, according to data from PowerSchool, which tracks grades and attendance for schools. Attendance fell in 75% of the districts as the year wore on, dropping by 1.5% on average each month, data show. The data covers 2,700 districts that include more than 2.5 million students learning in person and online.

Limited data from some states and districts shows that students learning remotely -- especially students of color, special needs and elementary school students -- were attending school less often compared with their in-school classmates. The data deepens concerns that the lengthy school closures will widen the pre-pandemic academic achievement gaps between poor students and others. About 56% of school districts were exclusively remote as of Dec. 18, according to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Washington focused on improving public education in the U.S. The barriers for students learning online continue to include problems with internet connectivity and access to devices.

Several readers have shared this report: In what could be the nation's first such case, the city of San Francisco filed suit Wednesday against its own school district, demanding the restart of in-person instruction for more than 52,000 students. City Attorney Dennis Herrera named the San Francisco Board of Education, the San Francisco Unified School District and Superintendent Vincent Matthews as defendants in what the city says is an unprecedented legal fight between overlapping government agencies over how to reopen classes during the pandemic. Herrera said the board has had more than 10 months to develop a plan to get students back into classrooms and so far "they have earned an F." Students in districts just outside San Francisco and those enrolled in San Francisco private schools have all seen the inside of classrooms since the pandemic struck, unlike SFUSD pupils, the plaintiffs said. "Having a plan to make a plan doesn't cut it," the city attorney added.

While some major metropolitan areas operate public schools from City Hall, virtually all California K-12 campuses come under the authority of local districts that are autonomous from city and county governments. San Francisco City Hall and the San Francisco Unified School District, and its school board, operate independently of each other. "This is not the path we would have chosen, but nothing matters more right now than getting our kids back in school," Mayor London Breed said. "The city has offered resources and staff to get our school facilities ready and to support testing for our educators." Representatives for the National School Boards Association, an advocacy group for public schools and local boards of education, said they believe San Francisco's lawsuit is the first civil action filed by a city against a district over Covid-19 closings. "Reopening decisions are very, very difficult, but they call for collaboration, not litigation," association CEO Anna Maria Chavez said in a statement. "Everyone wants students back in schools as soon as it is safe, but it must be a community decision based on local data that involves all of the key players from teachers and administrators to parents and local health officials." Further reading: San Francisco Vs San Francisco School Board: A Push To Get Students Back In School.