L.A. Schools Telehealth Vendor Waited 8 Months to Report Breach

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It’s another hot summer Friday and another day with news about a data breach — this one jeopardizing both student health and campus safety data.

And once again, the development is unfolding in the country’s second-largest school district.

Kokomo Solutions, which the Los Angeles district contracts with to provide telehealth services to students during the school day and to track campus safety threats, disclosed a data breach after it discovered an “unauthorized third party” on its computer network. The discovery happened in December 2024, but the notice to the California attorney general’s office wasn’t made until Aug. 5.  

It’s the latest in a series of data privacy incidents affecting L.A. schools, including a high-profile 2022 ransomware attack exposing students’ sensitive mental health records and last year’s collapse of a much-lauded $6 million artificial intelligence chatbot project. 

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In the news

Students at the center of Trump’s D.C. police takeover: In an unprecedented federal power grab, the Trump administration’s seizure of the D.C. police department and National Guard deployment is designed to target several vulnerable groups — including kids. | NPR

• The move comes at a time when crime in the nation’s capital is on the decline. But a deep-dive from June explores how the district’s failure to prevent student absences has contributed to “the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.” | The Washington Post
  
• Here’s what young people have to say about Trump’s D.C. takeover. | NBC 4
  
• City police will roll out a youth-specific curfew Friday in the Navy Yard neighborhood. | Fox 5

A new Ohio law requires school districts to implement basic cybersecurity measures in response to heightened cyberattacks. What the law doesn’t do, however, is provide any money to carry out the new mandate. | WBNS 

News in Trump’s immigration crackdown: A federal judge in Minnesota has released from immigration detention a nursing 25-year-old mother, allowing her to return to her children as her case works its way through the court. | The Minnesota Star Tribune 

• The Trump administration has revived one of its most controversial immigration policies from the president’s first term: Separating families. | The New York Times
  
• Federal immigration officials quizzed an Idaho school resource officer about an unaccompanied migrant student, part of a broader national effort to conduct “welfare checks” on immigrant youth who came to the U.S. without their parents. | InvestigateWest
  
• Leading Oklahoma Republican lawmakers have partnered with the Trump administration in a lawsuit challenging a state law allowing undocumented students to receive in-state college tuition. | InsideHigherEd
  
• Los Angeles community members have organized to create protective perimeters around the city’s campuses after immigration agents reportedly drew their guns on a student outside a high school. | Los Angeles Times
  • The district announced new bus routes designed to improve student safety while commuting to school during heightened immigration enforcement. | NBC 4

• The nonprofit Southwest Key, which for years has been the federal government’s largest provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, has laid off thousands in Texas and Arizona after losing federal grants. The Trump administration dropped a lawsuit in March over allegations the nonprofit subjected migrant children to widespread sexual abuse. | ABC 15
  
• A Texas court blocked the state attorney general’s request to depose and question a nun who leads Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, one of the largest migrant aid groups in the region. | The Texas Tribune

Microphone-equipped sensors installed in school bathrooms to crack down on student vaping could be hacked, researchers revealed, and turned into secret listening devices. | Wired

‘These are innocent children, sir’: New video of the delayed police response to the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows the campus police chief attempting to negotiate with the gunman for more than 30 minutes. | The New York Times

Kansas schools have become the latest target in the Trump administration’s campaign against districts that permit transgender students to participate in school athletics. | KCTV

• The Loudoun County, Virginia, school board has refused to comply with an Education Department order to end a policy allowing transgender students to use restroom facilities that match their gender identity. | LoudounNow 
• The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into allegations the Baltimore school district ignored antisemetic harassment by students and educators. | The Baltimore Banner

Lots of drills — little evidence: A congressionally mandated report finds that active shooter drills vary widely across the country — making it difficult to understand their effect on mental and emotional health. | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

A federal judge has blocked a new Arkansas law requiring that public schools display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. It’s the second state Ten Commandments law to be halted this year. | Axios 

ICYMI: I did a deep-dive into the far-right Christian nationalists behind more than two dozen state Ten Commandments-in-schools bills nationally — each of which are inherently identical. | The 74

Is Texas up next? Civil rights groups will ask a judge on Friday to prevent a similar law from going into effect. | Houston Chronicle

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ICYMI @The74

Despite Court Order, Education Department’s Civil Rights Staff Still On Leave

‘So Many Threats to Kids’: ICE Fear Grips Los Angeles at Start of New School Year

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Emotional Support

Don’t sleep on this Bloomberg feature into “Doodlemania” — the billion-dollar industry for hypoallergenic (and floofy!) designer pups.

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