Pandora’s Blog

I have news today from opposite ends of the country; both involve school districts taking action.

First, the Natrona County School District in Wyoming last week approved an anti-bullying policy that targets using electronic devices to engage in cyberbullying or sending text messages with sexual content (‘sexting’).

Second, the Upper St. Clair School District in Pennsylvania will vote (Dec. 14th) on a proposed “Acceptable use of Internet” policy to update their computer use policy to include cyberbullying and predators.

Of course, PC Pandora monitoring software can be used in the students’ homes to keep them safe…

November 29, 2009
School District approves anti-bullying policy
Associated Press

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) – The Natrona County School District has approved an anti-bullying policy that targets using electronic devices to engage in cyberbullying or sending text messages with sexual content, called sexting.

Marty Wood, director of the district’s safe schools office, says the district defines sexting as electronically sending anything of a sexual nature to someone who would find it offensive.

Kathleen Dixon, attorney for the school board, says the policy targets any type of “intentional electronic communication done with the intent to harm, to embarrass, to demean.”

The state Legislature required all school districts to pass an anti-bullying policy by Dec. 31, and the district approved its policy last week.

December 2, 2009
USC to address students’ Internet use
By Carla Valentine Myers, The Almanac

Concerns about cyberbullying and predators interacting with children on social network sites were not widespread the last time Upper St. Clair School District’s computer use policy was altered more than a decade ago.

Those are just two of the issues addressed in a proposed “Acceptable use of Internet” policy which the school board is expected to vote on at its Dec. 14 meeting.

Raymond Berrott, director of technology for the school district, said the district has never had an entire Internet use policy. This new policy, if adopted, will supplement the district’s current “Information Systems Policy” which was put in place in 1998.

The proposed policy, which had a “first reading” for initial public comment at the board’s Nov. 23 meeting, lists 18 prohibited uses of the Internet on district computers. They include cyberbullying, hate mail, discriminatory remarks, product advertisement or political lobbying, facilitating illegal activity, commercial or for-profit purposes, profanity, and access to materials, images or photographs that are obscene, pornographic, lewd or otherwise illegal.

The policy also mandates that “Any district computer/server utilized by students and staff shall be equipped with Internet blocking/filtering software.”

Another mandate is that students in the district be taught Internet safety. The policy mandates “Education of students about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking Web sites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness.”

Amy Billerbeck, president of the school board, said students in the middle schools and high school will be required to sign a copy of the policy and agree to abide by it.

Billerbeck said after the Nov. 23 meeting that changes are occurring so rapidly in technology that she expects the board will have to update the policy regularly.

The policy is available for review on the school district’s Web site.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 PM and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.