17
Reddit’s r_k12sysadmin Credits: @r_channels @reddit2telegram
Security Awareness Training
Wondering what you are using for Security Awareness Training? I got a message from my rep about training from Fortinet Security Awareness Training and Phishing special right now. I had seen a demo regarding Cybernut, We had Knowbe4 before and had some issues.
Thanks in advance.
https://redd.it/1l5mqbk
@r_k12sysadmin
Security Watch 6/6/25
On K12TechPro, we've launched a weekly cyber threat intelligence and vulnerability newsletter with NTP and K12TechPro. We'll post the "public" news to k12sysadmin from each newsletter. For the full "k12 techs only" portion (no middle schoolers, bad guys, vendors, etc. allowed), log into k12techpro.com and visit the Cybersecurity Hub.
Chrome to Distrust Chunghwa Telecom & Netlock Certificates by August 1
Starting August 1, 2025, Google Chrome will stop trusting certificates issued by Chunghwa Telecom and Netlock due to repeated industry rule violations and transparency issues. Websites using these certificates may display warnings or fail to load. Google urges affected site owners to migrate to trusted CAs immediately to avoid disruptions.
Fake AI Tools Deploying Ransomware
The AI boom has created new phishing risks. Attackers are launching fake websites that mimic real AI tools—like a cloned version of novaleads(.)app—that deliver CyberLock ransomware via deceptive downloads. These sites often rank high in search results through SEO manipulation, making them easy traps.
ScreenConnect Vulnerability Patched in Version 25.2.4
A serious vulnerability in ConnectWise ScreenConnect (version 25.2.3 and below) allows attackers to hijack ViewState and execute arbitrary code on the server. The latest patch disables ViewState entirely, removing the threat. Cloud users are already patched, but on-prem users must update immediately or apply a backport patch.
Windows 11 Update KB5058405 Causing Boot Errors
Some systems, especially virtual machines on Azure or Hyper-V, are experiencing boot errors after applying Windows 11 update KB5058405. The issue stems from a corrupted or missing ACPI.sys file. Microsoft is investigating and will release a fix. Physical endpoints and Home/Pro editions are mostly unaffected.
https://redd.it/1l50goe
@r_k12sysadmin
Lock Chromebooks to Google for search and block APK files?
Is it possible with the free license of Google Workspace to lock OUs to only be able to search with Google.com or a kid-friendly search engine, and can the download of certain file extensions be blocked? I know it's a classroom management issue, but the teachers and Admins are sleep-walking here, and I fear that we need to be able to block the gap at least temporarily. Thanks!
https://redd.it/1l4rh5a
@r_k12sysadmin
Securly Free going away
I got a call from them today saying that the free offerings for Securly Filter and Aware are going away in mid-July. No way we can afford it when the price goes up next year.
Putting this on your radar in case you're using it, and also wondering what folks are using these days.
https://redd.it/1l4hn2i
@r_k12sysadmin
End of School Year Fun
You know you need to vent.... let it out here!
Here's some of mine to start...
High School students keep their Chromebooks over summer. I've had two randomly turned in - one by a student on Monday who hasn't been back... last day is today (Thursday). Second was turned in today by an offsite/online student. Decided to come in today and turn it in. I asked the office what's up (are they still enrolled), tell them the students that are enrolled are keeping them over summer (as we already informed them) and if the students are still enrolled and the office isn't going to make arrangements to get the Chromebooks back to the students, they need to decide what to do with them, as I'm not storing them over summer. The reply was "Great questions, and I don't have an answer for you"
Email went out to staff stating: "Leave the IT equipment in your room plugged in and powered on so we can maintain it" because every year we get a few that think a computer is like a bookshelf and just needs to be covered with a sheet for the summer or stored somewhere "just in case". I immediately get a ticket - "I don't want my PC next year - should I just unplug it and bring it to you?"
Just had another person stop by. Staff member. "I'm leaving for the summer, here's my Chromebook" (no chargers of course).
Can you tell it's the last day of school? Your turn!
https://redd.it/1l48upk
@r_k12sysadmin
Windows 11 24H2 and GoGuardian?
Anyone else having issues with Windows 11 and the version 24H2?
ETA: Our machines with this version are getting a lot of 80004005 errors.
https://redd.it/1l4397r
@r_k12sysadmin
Google Slides inappropriate content
I know it's a classroom issue ultimately, but are there any means available to IT either within Google Workspace or our DNS/Content filtering to prevent/alleviate inappropriate content (pics, videos) from being inserted into student's Google Slides? Thank you.
https://redd.it/1l3x7m8
@r_k12sysadmin
When you coordinate a network rewiring project with an office flooring replacement project including the server room but have to keep the network up for office staff and summer school, things get… interesting.
https://redd.it/1l3lm69
@r_k12sysadmin
Persistent Mac Port Problem with IFPs (and Projectors)
I hope I am not the only K12 tech with this issue.
My classrooms are equipped with Promethean IFPs, connected via HDMI and USB cables to an Apple teacher computer, which is either an iMac or a Macbook Pro. However, this is an issue that has been plaguing me since before we've had the Prometheans (we used to have Mimio interactive projectors which also suffered from this issue).
The symptom is simple: The Apple device loses its connection to the HDMI-connected interactive device.
The "solution" is also simple: unplug the device from the USB port on the Apple device and plug it into a different USB port, and if that doesn't work, plug it back into the original port that wasn't working. Infuriating? Yes. Baffling? Doubly so.
I believe this is a Mac problem because it affected the projectors we had before our IFPs. I do not believe this is a cabling issue because swapping ports fixes the issue, and also because over the years I have swapped out cables a thousand times.
What does Apple support say? I am glad you asked. Every time I call them with this issue they act like they have never heard of it before, and they run me through the usual, "try a different cable, try a different computer, try rebooting, try upgrading...". I don't bother calling Apple anymore.
Does anyone on this sub have any recommendations for me on how to resolve this once and for all?
EDIT: I'd like to preemptively add that, before anyone says "Macs do not belong in schools", I will say that when it comes to student computing I 100% agree with this. No, make that 1000% agree. However, when it comes to teacher's machines, there are few great alternatives. I refuse to go with Windows because I don't want to get into the license-counting game, and also I simply dislike Windows, and Chromebooks do not have the power and or versatility that many of our teachers need.
https://redd.it/1l3avhe
@r_k12sysadmin
Issue with Chromecasting on Chrome Version 137
Just wanted to let any fellow Chromecast users know about an issue we're having. Since updating to chrome browser version 137.0.7151.69 when casting and using the "cast screen" option it will disconnect after about 10 seconds. Use the "cast tab" option and it works fine. I've tested this from multiple different Lenovo windows laptops to Gen 3 Chromecasts. I tested from a laptop with chrome version 131 and it worked fine but when updating it, this issue started to occur.
I informed the Google Nest team about it so they're aware of the issue but they didn't have any workaround besides trying to use an older version of Chrome.
https://redd.it/1l368ch
@r_k12sysadmin
Google Chrome being blocked by Microsoft Family Safety
Hi everyone, some of our BYOD campuses are reporting lots of students with Windows device being unable to run Chrome in the last 8 hours or so. The behaviour is one of two things:
\-Chrome briefly opens and then closes, no error or warning shown
\-Attempting to launch Chrome results in the Family Safety 'You don't have access to this app, click here to request access' message.
We are getting students to use Edge for now, but is anyone else seeing this behaviour in their district?
https://redd.it/1l2u5tx
@r_k12sysadmin
Prevent Students from emailing anyone but staff
We are a Google Workspace district. We would like to prevent students from emailing anyone who is not a staff member in the district. I have it set up so that they can only email someone in a list that I created. This creates 2 problems:
1. they cannot email their parents. Is this a problem? Most emails we see are, "Mom, I'm sick, come pick me up."
2. We use Final Forms and they cannot send emails to students to help them sign in and sign off on forms. Final Forms asked me to add their domain to the list of approved users. Can a blanket domain be added? Right now everything in the list is a staff member's address.
We only have 1 domain. Students address are flast. Staff addresses are last_f.
I was reading about having a header added to each student email and filtering each other out that way. Is that the best way to go?
Do other districts block students from emailing parents? I hate that part, but feel better knowing that they cannot email the pervert they find on the internet.
I know that students can get around the no email rule with shared docs and other email accounts. Most seem to be too lazy to do so.
https://redd.it/1l2rz2o
@r_k12sysadmin
Supermicro server vendor?
Anyone have a recommendation on a vendor they've used? I'm struggling.
https://redd.it/1l2lkqp
@r_k12sysadmin
Google Workspace User Clean Up: Suspend vs. Archive
This week I did some testing on suspending vs. archiving inactive users. TL;DL: there really isn't any difference if you are on a free Google Workspace plan (Fundamentals).
The only benefit to archiving a user is removing an active EDU Plus license. Licenses are NOT removed when you suspend a user.
I compiled a few more notes and thoughts here: https://googleadminbootcamp.com/suspend-v-archive/
The archive option is new for EDU domains (it's been available for business customers for a while). I would love to know if anyone can think of any other benefits to archiving vs. suspending inactive accounts. What is your process for cleaning out old users?
https://redd.it/1l2d0qv
@r_k12sysadmin
Anyone pulling PowerSchool Data into PowerBi?
Interested to know which third party you're using or do you have an API?
https://redd.it/1l28zy8
@r_k12sysadmin
Virtualization OS
Hello fellow k12 techs! Today we had one of our hyper-v servers lose data due to 2 drive failures in the same mirror! (Some sort of power issue occurred right before this). All of our server run Windows server. In my homelab I run proxmox and I know of one other school that also does. Do any of you guys run proxmox for virtualization? And what are yalls opinions?
Server hardware: Dell Poweredge 710, 32gb of ram 2 xeon 8 core cpus
https://redd.it/1l5dywe
@r_k12sysadmin
One of my students has a GitHub account dedicated to ChromeOS exploits
Came across a GitHub account that appears to belong to one of my students (the username is one I've seen her use elsewhere) coincidentally and it's all about exploits for enrolled chromebooks. And, like, it's June and I'm tired.
Most of what she's detailed is pretty spicy for the average user (sh1mmer based, though she's also working on privilege escalation without unenrollment apparently?), so I'm not too worried about most of my students accessing it. I've known she's a talented programmer and I have supported her gamedev work by connecting her with folks I know in the industry but I didn't realize her attention was here, too. Part of me is genuinely impressed by her work and another part of me is just tired looking at this. In a number of ways, I care less about this than all of the kids picking keys off of their keyboards, but I also can't just ignore this.
Where do I even start here? She's a great kid, very engaged, and has one more year at this school before she graduates.
https://redd.it/1l4uh1l
@r_k12sysadmin
What does your district do with Chromebook that are completely functional but has excessive cosmetic damage?
https://redd.it/1l4qunn
@r_k12sysadmin
This summer/next school year is going to be a sh*tshow for our district
This summer is gonna be the biggest shitshow since I started working here. The district I work at has a little under 5,000 students. Grades 5 and up are fully 1:1. The lower grades have roughly enough Chromebooks to be 1:1, but they stay in carts and aren’t taken home. We only have 7 IT staff, but really only 3 of us manage the Chromebooks. The repairs have been astronomically high this year, only about half of our CB fleet right now is under warranty. Because our team is so small, students can go months without having their CBs while they’re out for repair, and we are constantly out of loaners too. I’m a network tech, so in addition to handling the CBs, I have about a million other things on my plate. One positive is that next year we’re refreshing our CB fleet so all of the upper 1:1 schools will have warrantied CBs. Still a lot of work to create repair requests and ship them out, though.
Administration posed an idea earlier this school year that grades 5-8 (Upper Elementary school and Intermediate school, around 800 students at each school) should no longer take the CBs home. Apparently, the curriculum doesn’t require them to go home anymore, and a majority of these CBs seem to be breaking while the kid is at home, on the bus, in the hall, etc. Personally, I thought it was a great idea, there should be less CB repairs, hopefully less lost CBs, really only the high schoolers need to take them home, not the lower grades. I was fully on board until I realized that our administration has absolutely no plans to provide us with charging infrastructure or carts of any sort, with the exception of *power strips*. They expect 2 schools, with 800 students each, to be given power strips and they have to figure out how these CBs will be charged. Apparently, it’s up to the schools themselves to figure out how this entire system is going to work, we have no say in it. All we are supposed to do is assign the CBs per student, drop them off in the classrooms and plug them into the power strips, and our work is done. According to our IT director, any other problems are not our issue.
I can already guarantee the teachers will be outraged. It’s such a half-assed idea that, in my own opinion, can only be properly done with carts. Maybe you can get by with charging stations, but for larger schools like this where the students have multiple periods, it will be a mess. But, regardless of our opinion, it will be done. Our IT director is completely disconnected from how anything works in our district. He’s not very tech savvy himself and he hasn’t even been to most of the schools. He has no idea how things are run despite us trying to keep him in the loop, and is constantly coming up with ideas that might sound good on paper but are always poorly executed. For example, we have aging desktop computers that the staff use. About 5 years ago, we made a purchase of laptops to be given to every staff member. His plan was that these laptops will phase out the old desktops. The issue is, almost all of our display tech are 15 year old projectors, that have VGA as the only input. Not to mention teachers have multiple monitors. We don’t have the money to replace the projectors and we don’t have the money to invest in docking stations for these laptops. Our boss has told us we will never buy desktops again, if a teachers desktop breaks they have to switch to their laptop. What should I tell them if they can’t connect their laptop (with HDMI port only) to their board, or multiple monitors? “We’ll deal with it on a case by case basis” ….. this would be a problem with EVERY teacher.
/end rant
https://redd.it/1l4fulf
@r_k12sysadmin
Google Licensing Changes & GCDS
We're having an issue with license assignment & unassignment, as well as the new archiving functionality in GCDS.
After discussing with Google support, they stated that GCDS cannot do license unassignment and archive the user in one sync. We must first perform a sync to remove the Google Workspace for Education Plus license, and then a separate sync to archive the user. Is this what other districts are doing? I find it hard to understand that GCDS cannot remove the license and perform the archive action in one sync.
Any ideas? Is there an easier way to go about this license change?
https://redd.it/1l45y1m
@r_k12sysadmin
Worst thing a student has said to you in an unblock request/bypass password.
I’ve been called several slurs, several just flat out “f you’s”, one kid kept typing the n-word then tried to say our school was racist because he knew that was the password and we changed it.
Anyone else have any funny/bad/outirght bizzare ones?
https://redd.it/1l408ez
@r_k12sysadmin
Managed Apple accounts on iPads in high school
So for many years, we did not manage our high school students’ Apple IDs, and they were able to use their school domain email to create a personal Apple ID. This worked great. I would have to ask Apple to whitelist our domain for a period of time while setting up new accounts, but that was it. Well, last year I called for the whitelisting and was told nope. Either manage your Apple IDs or have your students create their own with some other personal email. We have always asked the students not to use personal Apple accounts on their iPads because they just run out of storage and all those pictures etc. are just not good. (I know they can change cloud settings but do they?)
Also, I should note that we do not use shared iPads, and content, like apps, are pushed out through the MDM.
What have some of you done? Did you bite the bullet and use managed Apple accounts? Or look the other way and let the students use whatever they want?
Thanks for your help!
https://redd.it/1l3lept
@r_k12sysadmin
Has anyone used or uses Microsoft Teams for Education?
We are looking to overhaul our education environment and the first choice is Google Classroom but my boss wants me to look into Microsoft Teams for Education. I've seen some videos and their website for information. It looks a bit busy compared to Google but I was hoping to get some feedback. Thanks.
https://redd.it/1l3ccsp
@r_k12sysadmin
Summer Projects: A Successful August starts in June
“Avoid the summer trap.” If you’ve worked in K-12 tech for more than a minute, you know exactly what that means.
We roll into June absolutely drained from an unpredictable school year. The last few weeks were a blur of device collection, ticket backlog triage, retiree account cleanups, and last-minute “can you just” requests. And suddenly, it is time to shift gears and execute massive projects while the buildings are quiet.
What ends up happening? You coast through early summer, catch your breath (maybe), then suddenly realize in mid-July that everything is still on the to-do list — and the pressure ratchets up. That’s the summer trap.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Read the full article at https://k12techpro.com/summer-projects-a-successful-august-starts-in-june/
https://redd.it/1l39joy
@r_k12sysadmin
Chromebook Repair screen on boot
An Asus C204E Chromebook came across my desk for repair yesterday. Didn't want to boot, but after leaving it plugged in for a little while, it finally did come up. (Weird because the battery was 95%.) Instead of booting to a login screen, it gave me the Chromebook Repair screen, reminding me that repairs should be done by a trained technician. (Sorry, you get me instead.)
I did some Googling and found information on that repair screen, including a few posts here. Today I received a second Chromebook that goes to the same repair screen. Some of the posts I read suggested that students are doing this on purpose, trying to bypass enrollment or GoGuardian. I didn't see anything definite, but now I've got two in two days (both assigned to students known for looking for exploits). I'm starting to wonder if this is the latest TikTok/YouTube craze. (A few years ago, it was a YouTube video by some kid who claimed he could bypass Go Guardian by Powerwashing and removing the Chromebook from enrollment. (Our Chromebooks are set for auto enrollment, so that video wouldn't help anybody.) The good news is summer is upon us, so if this is a thing, it will be short-lived. Just wondering if anybody had any additional information.
https://redd.it/1l35fav
@r_k12sysadmin
Purchasing digital games
This year the district put in an Esports lab in our building and I was wondering if anyone knows the best way of purchasing games? Tried going through one vendor who had us purchase gift cards and try to use them on the 30 accounts to purchase games. After 6 months of back and fourth of trying to get that work we had to scrap it. So now I'm back at square one and was wondering if anyone had any luck with any specific vendor. Unfortunately the games they are requesting don't have physical copies either or else I would have gone that route. Thanks in advance.
https://redd.it/1l2sqns
@r_k12sysadmin
How to not mistake one camera server for the other camera server
https://redd.it/1l2mpxn
@r_k12sysadmin
397% completed.
https://redd.it/1l2ffto
@r_k12sysadmin
Does anyone have Optoma X316ST projectors? Where do you get bulb replacements?
Our district has several different models of projectors. A small percentage of our projectors are Optoma X316ST. We’ve had quite a few this year with blown bulbs, but the issue is we can’t find any compatible bulbs for this model. There are several sites that claim to carry the correct bulb for this model, but we’ve gone with 4 or 5 different vendors and the bulbs never work. They fit fine, but the projector will just flash the lamp light. I’ve tested all of the bulbs we’ve gotten in different projectors that are known to be working, so I can verify the issue isn’t with the projectors.
I’m at my wits end and I can’t understand why several different vendors keep sending me the same incorrect bulb despite claiming it works with this model of projector. Most of the time, the box says the bulb is a “BL-FP210A” which apparently is a bulb that is supposed to be compatible with this projector, but it’s not.
Does anyone here have this model of projector? If so, where do you purchase your bulbs?
https://redd.it/1l2bqs4
@r_k12sysadmin
Chromebook issues that are NOT student caused
Anyone seeing an uptick in just general issues? We've been plagued with loose screws and backlights dying.
https://redd.it/1l1o2i3
@r_k12sysadmin