Blog Concerns
Dear Parents,
The purpose of this communication is to enlist your support in assuring the safety of our students both on and off campus, and to remind everyone that we hold our students accountable for their behavior at all times. Specifically, this communication addresses the issue of student use of Internet communication.
If your teenager uses the computer to communicate with friends or others, he or she may have an instant messaging profile, many leave “messages” on the computer when away, or even have a personal web page posted in cyberspace where millions of people of any age can publicly access it. In the world of Internet communication, your teen can become anyone, anywhere, develop relationships with people of any age, or be the target of gossip, harassment, or violence… and chances are you may never know about it.
Belonging to groups on the Internet is a popular activity for teens, and it is open to the public. One such website, MySpace.com, has become an infamous cybernet “hangout space” for young people, although there are other popular sites as well. In addition, many teenagers have their own personal web pages and “journals” on a number of websites.
The school’s concerns are the following regarding such Internet communication:
- students may unknowingly include identifiable information (including pictures) that anyone, including potential predators, can access. This includes photos (which can be digitally altered), school identification, family/residence information, etc.
- students may be “bloging” about illegal or immoral/lewd behavior;
- students may be gossiping about, harassing, or threatening others.
We know that not all students intend to use these Internet sites in a negative way. However, if they are posting inappropriate pictures, talking about illegal or immoral behavior, or harassing other people, they are not only endangering themselves and others, but they are acting in violation of the Mitty mission and philosophy.
In our School Policies we state that we hold our students accountable for appropriate behavior both on and off campus. Although time constraints prohibit us from searching the Web for illicit or inappropriate student blogs, understand that serious disciplinary consequences will ensue should we find evidence of such behavior from your student, including the possibility of dismissal. In some cases, the police may also become involved. These sites are public domain and do not constitute invasion of privacy.
What can parents do? There is actually a lot that you can do.
- Have a conversation with your teenager about the dangers of “public” identifiable information and the potential consequences. Perhaps you may even want to visit these sites to find out what is accessible to your student. You will have to register on the site in order to search the site. Current commonly used sites are: www.myspace.com ; www.xanga.com ; www.friendster.com .
- Advise your student that when on the Internet, never assume that you are anonymous, and never “say” anything you wouldn’t sign your name to because this can be traced.
- Access some of these resources: www.netsmartz.org (SJ Police and AMHS are using this program to educate kids in schools); www.wiredkids.org/index.html ; www.teenangels.org/.
- Understand online text “lingo” commonly used by teens by accessing TEXT LINGO.
Our ultimate goal is to support our partnership in educating and guiding our students academically, spiritually, socially, and morally. To that end, we will be incorporating information about all of the above issues into our freshman technology orientation conducted at the beginning of each year by our library staff. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or input.
Claudia Temple
Assistant Principal/Dean of Students
