Episode 239 - Outages, AI Bills, and the Shutdown's Impact on Schools

K12 Tech Talk

Join Josh and Mark on this week’s K‑12 Tech Talk as they break down the real-world effects of the federal government shutdown on schools, walk through a new federal AI bill (the GARD Act) and discuss major service outages that disrupted classrooms — including Chromebook/Google login problems, recent AWS and Entra incidents, and how districts should respond.

Topics include the shutdown’s impact on SNAP, Head Start and school nutrition programs, proposed age‑verification and disclosure rules for AI chatbots, Character.ai’s under‑18 ban, Jamf’s acquisition by Francisco Partners, and practical outage response tactics (status checks, communications, and redundancy thresholds).

Expect hands‑on advice about managing departed staff accounts and shared Drive ownership, recommended tools and resources, plus sponsor shoutouts and listener contact info. A concise, actionable episode for district tech leaders and educators navigating policy, reliability, and student safety.

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Music by Colt Ball

Disclaimer: The views and work done by Josh, Chris, and Mark are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of sponsors or any respective employers or organizations associated with the guys. K12 Tech Talk itself does not endorse or validate the ideas, views, or statements expressed by Josh, Chris, and Mark's individual views and opinions are not representative of K12 Tech Talk. Furthermore, any references or mention of products, services, organizations, or individuals on K12 Tech Talk should not be considered as endorsements related to any employer or organization associated with the guys.