Internet Safety in Our School
My note Posted to Listservs 2/22/05

Friendster ... myspace ... and more ... more technology issues for middle school and high school students that invoke Derek Bok's quote from 15 years ago that "the real impact of technology will be the issues that are raised rather than the tools it gives us" ... the issue in this case is how to deal with students and parents who get involved in UNSAFE behavior outside of the school ... this could refer to drinking in 1950, drugs in 1970 or driving in 1990 (or any decades of course) ...

In any case, if your school has wrestled with or dealt with Friendster-type or MySpace.com-type issues, I would love to hear from you OFF LISTSERV ... I will compile and post on http://www.summercore.com/friendster ... thanks in advance ... stevester ;-)

• Click here for the Internet Safety section of our public Web page to Chapin parents
• Click here for a letter to parents from the Park School (Boston MA) June 2006
• Click here for a wonderful set of recommendations from Jim Heynderickx from Oregon Episcopal School (shared on a listserv Jan 2006)
• Letter to families from one school ... click here
• One NYC school has included several proactive sections in their Fall 2005 newsletter along with e-mailing families ... click here and see page 9!

• At Chapin, we posted this on our Web site and sent out e-mail to parents and students in Summer 2005 (click here) ... we have a team of people that we call "Team Net Safety" to deal with these issues and give advice to parents (click here) and conduct parent coffees on Internet Safety ... we then followed this up with a visit (and series of talks) from a secret service agent.

• Shared 2/22/05 from the Head of the Upper School from a school in TX: "We had some issues with Xanga.com earlier this year. Kids had set up a blogring identified as students from our school. Although none of the individual sites was too bad individually, the collective wasn't pretty and was fairly dangerous. Some kids had posted full names, others included pictures of themselves, and still others provided information on upcoming athletic events, etc. that would have enabled "bad guys" to locate some of them fairly easily. In addition, the language and comments about classmates, teachers, peer schools, and their own parents, coupled with the identification of the school, caused us to take issue with the participants. Although we did not take what I would call disciplinary action, we did require the students to disassemble the blogring and notify their parents of our concerns. I followed with a letter. What was brought home to me yet again was the implied anonymity of the Internet. We had students divulge details about themselves and say some pretty cruel things that they would never say or reveal face to face. Also, their naivete was pretty clear. They were under the impression that one had to subscribe and have the information on the blogring in order to get into it, and therefore, they viewed this as a private chat room. They were incredulous that someone had e-mailed me the link, enabling me to get into not only our school's blogring but those of any other school identified by name."

• Posted on ISED by one Director of Technology

  "Just to let you know, we have chosen to use this as a teachable moment for students, parents and teachers. As educators this is what we do. This morning our principal did a beautiful job discussing the issue with our students. She used three points: safety, respect for yourself, and respect for your school and others in the community. We have captured the sites which are totally in contrast to our values as an institution to use them in discussion with the student and parent. We have sent a letter (e-mail) home alerting the parents, describing how we are approaching the subject and advising them to talk to their children about the topic and their home internet policies. (They are not blogging at school, though if a teacher wanted to setup a private blog for a class, I would do so in a minute-it can be used wisely.) There was also a mandate put in place to have any public sites cleaned up by Monday. No pictures, full names, school names, vulgar language on public sites. They now know that we know, and that we will continually scan the sites. We cannot and do not want to monitor all that they do, but we can be alert and use what we find to keep "steering" them in the right direction. The parents and teachers are now also aware and we are including this topic in our wellness and morality curriculum. We feel that on-line journals are a wonderful tool that can be used positively in many ways. For instance we took in many students from our school in New Orleans. The Katrina victims used their blogs to stay in touch with their friends spread out all over the country. Now our students are using them to stay in touch with their new friends who are slowly moving back home. This is wonderful, but we encourage them to keep the blogs private between people that they know. They seem to be na•ve when it comes to the fact that others may look at a joke and not know it was a joke, and that once it is posted, it can be "somewhere" forever. In fact, a few of our girls have been trying to get their sites removed for weeks with no luck--even with the parents calling. They don't think about how their pictures could be used, or about the predators honing in on their cute bodies, or that something done stupidly as a teenager may affect them throughout their life, particularly with college acceptances, jobs and running for office. We have taken this opportunity and are running with it. It may very well be one of the more important things that we teach them while they are with us."

• Posted on ISED listserv by another tech coordinator: "One of the best recommendations I have heard on how to deal with the school image problem was to use this as a teaching opportunity- Brilliant! Help the students understand that this is a public space not just MySpace. Schools, potential employers and the like can use these sites to help them make choices on who they should admit or employ. Teach about self image in the online world. This is a lesson worth teaching and one that many of our students would understand."
• Click here for link from wiredsafety.org a wonderful site
• Click here for article from Business Week Dec 2005
• Click here for article from the Boston Globe (12/2005)
• From EFF regarding rights ... click here

• Colleges are getting involved and this can help us in our K-12 schools as we educate our students and set guidelines: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

• Posted November 2006 from the ISED listserv (name of school omitted for reasons of privacy)
  • This is a comment from one parent: "I know that you can't limit what students do in general while online but facebook is different. When students sign up, they use the school's name to open an account. And thereafter they are identified as students from our school. With the networking that occurs on facebook, the school image is being seen by students all over the USA. In my mind this is not a positive thing. By not imposing any rules for facebook postings, it appears that the school is giving tacit approval to the activities being posted. Please can you help change this?"
  • As a result, this school added this to their AUP: "While not on the school network, students should remember to represent our school in a manner that is consistent with our school-wide Honor Code, centering on honesty, academic integrity, sportsmanship and stewardship. Students are expected to understand that their actions, while not in school, reflect directly on the entire school community and on each student."

My Accounts (sb)

• Myspace ... click here ... login of sb@chapin.edu ... I want ??? ??? safe and alive 33
• Facebook ... click here ... login of sb@chapin.edu ... I want ??? ??? safe and alive 33

How far to go in sharing Web sites with students and getting involved in more explicit description?

• To Catch a Predator ... Wikipedia ... click
• From the NC site ... To Catch a Predator ... click
• MyCrimeSpace.com ... noted by Jim from Hockaday ... click