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You've heard the stories: A student uses his school e-mail account
to send a threatening message to the White House. A teacher receives
a sexually explicit e-mail from a colleague. An administrator
sends out political campaign materials on the school district's
e-mail system. A man arranges to meet a preteen girl after getting
her school e-mail address through a chat room.
When e-mail first became available to school districts, much
of the policy discussion centered on the way school board members
might use e-mail and whether open-meeting laws applied to e-mail
correspondence. But as more districts get e-mail accounts for
students and staff, board members need to attend to safety and
liability considerations as well.
Acceptable use
E-mail opens up a whole new world to students. They can exchange
messages with students in other states and other countries. They
can contact professors, authors, scientists, and other experts
for research. They can discuss homework assignments and ask their
teachers questions after the school day is over.
Unfortunately, though, e-mail also gives students opportunities
and responsibilities that some of them aren't mature enough to
handle. It's all too easy for kids to send improper messages,
get involved with inappropriate chat groups, or become victims
of sexual predators. And they can just plain waste time sending
messages to each other instead of doing their work.
An acceptable-use policy for student e-mail is the cornerstone
of a sound e-mail policy -- and might prevent such problems. "Acceptable-use
policies are very important," says Ronald Wenkart, general counsel
with the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa,
Calif. "Students are immature and do things they shouldn't."
Acceptable-use policies essentially are contracts among the
school, the student, and the parent. They outline what students
can and cannot do using school technology, including the Internet
and e-mail accounts.
According to Wenkart, who wrote a chapter on this topic in Legal
Issues and Education Technology: A School Leader's Guide, published
by the National School Boards Association, a good acceptable-use
policy does the following:
* Establishes detailed ground rules on when and how students
can use the Internet and e-mail.
* Contains an annual notification clause that requires parents
each school year to sign an agreement that grants permission for
their child to use school-provided Internet services. Students
should be required to sign the document as well. The parents and
the student should acknowledge that the policy has been read and
understood and that it will be obeyed.
* Explains to parents that teachers and administrators will
supervise the conduct of students on school grounds.
* Makes compliance part of the student code of conduct and subjects
the students to disciplinary actions, including taking away Internet
and e-mail privileges for willful violations.
* Prohibits obscenity and other offensive language while using
school equipment.
* Forewarns students that network administrators can review
e-mail, file folders, and communications to maintain system integrity
and make sure users are using the system responsibly. Users should
not expect that files stored on the district servers are private.
* Imposes personal responsibility for passwords, security, and
maintenance of equipment. The policy should stress that password
sharing is prohibited.
* Includes specific punishments for violations of the policy.
* Is accompanied by or includes a "netiquette" document that
guides users on the right way to act while using the Internet
and e-mail.
* Specifies whether chat rooms will be considered off-limits.
* Asserts that the school district will not be responsible for
unauthorized costs incurred by students, nor will the district
vouch for accuracy of information obtained through the Internet,
nor will the district be responsible for students' negligence
or mistakes.
With an acceptable-use policy in place, schools should make
sure teachers and staff discuss with their students the right
and wrong way to use e-mail. For example, says Wenkart, teachers
should explain that e-mail is not a confidential medium for transmitting
personal messages; that it can be reviewed by others and should
only be used for legitimate educational purposes or as authorized;
and that it should be viewed as the sending of a written memorandum
by electronic means.
In addition, he says, students should be informed that their
e-mail will be monitored and that the discipline policy will be
enforced if infractions occur. They should be told that there
is no guarantee of privacy when using any school technology. And
they should be strongly advised not to give personal information
over the Internet.
Dangers and benefits
Concern over students getting "spammed" or sent obscene material
or Internet links on their school accounts led school board member
Art Beroff to look for Internet filtering programs that also filtered
X-rated e-mail. Beroff, a member of the District 27 School Board
in Queens, N.Y., says his school district doesn't provide e-mail
accounts for its 35,000 elementary and middle school students.
Many teachers have purchased their own computers and Internet
connections for their classrooms, however, and set up e-mail accounts
for students through commercial providers. Like all e-mail, these
accounts were subject to pornography spams. Students know they
aren't supposed to click on the sites, Beroff says, but it's unrealistic
to expect that they'll always follow the rules. The filtering
software was a better solution, he says: "A child in junior high
won't look at the rules, doesn't want to see the rules. We made
a policy that was based on the reality of the world."
School boards must decide for themselves if the dangers of student
e-mail accounts outweigh the benefits. In fact, some districts
come to the conclusion that the potential trouble isn't worth
it and, as a result, don't provide e-mail access to their students.
"Districts should be hesitant to allow students to have e-mail,"
says Wenkart. "It's too hard to monitor."
When accounts were set up for teachers and staff members at
Township High School District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill.,
says Keith Mann, director of media services and technology, the
district decided not to give students e-mail accounts.
"It was a conscious decision," says Mann. "The reasons were,
it was too much of a headache and it took too many district resources
to manage."
Mann sees benefits in allowing students access to e-mail, however.
He and his staff are looking into a system that would give students
internal e-mail, so they could e-mail each other and their teachers.
"I believe e-mail is good for kids," says Mann. "Some kids are
mature, and some aren't. Holding it back from one group hurts
the other."
Staff e-mail
Providing e-mail accounts for teachers and staff members is
generally an easier call. After all, most school employees are
responsible adults -- and besides, as an employer, a district
exercises some control over its employees. Still, employees have
been known to abuse their e-mail, so it's wise to have a clear
policy for staff in addition to your student policy.
One place to start is an acceptable-use policy for employees.
Whether you should use the same policy for students and staff
should be a point of discussion, says Wenkart. A single policy
establishes the same standards for everyone, avoiding confusion.
On the other hand, having separate policies for students and staff
lets you address the circumstances and needs of each group.
Some districts try to prevent staff e-mail problems by prohibiting
the use of e-mail for anything other than school business. That
kind of policy is difficult to enforce, however, says Rodney Satterwhite,
an attorney with McGuire Woods Battle & Boothe, in Richmond,
Va. He recommends looking at e-mail use the same way you'd look
at phone use. If employees spend too much time on personal phone
calls, they should be disciplined. "But it's not realistic to
say you can never take a phone call from your wife," says Satterwhite.
What's more, a district can run into trouble if it uses a "no
personal business" policy to prevent teachers from sending messages
about unionizing or union activities. "If you terminate someone
for sending a union message but not for writing a letter to a
son," says Satterwhite, issues of fairness will arise. Such a
policy must be enforced consistently.
Like students, teachers and staff need to be reminded they should
never consider their e-mail private. "Lots of people think that
when they delete a message, it's deleted," says Satterwhite. But
many systems administrators, in an effort to protect and back
up information on their networks, save e-mail from the system
for much longer than they have to; Satterwhite recommends not
saving e-mails for longer than five days. Teachers and staff should
be told: "Don't put anything in an e-mail you wouldn't put on
letterhead."
Courts increasingly are asking for e-mail messages in the discovery
process for lawsuits, including sexual harassment and discrimination
claims. They have not been sympathetic, says Satterwhite, to arguments
about the expense and burden of retrieving stored e-mail. It makes
sense, he says, to have a policy that limits how long a district
keeps e-mail. Staff should be reminded to print the messages they
need and delete the rest, he says.
Kathleen Vail
is an associate editor of Electronic School.
IDEAS AND RESOURCES
For help crafting an acceptable-use policy, a good place to
start is Legal Issues and Education Technology: A School Leader's
Guide, published in 1999 by the National School Boards Association's
Council of School Attorneys and Technology Leadership Network
($35; for ordering information, call 800-706-6722; order no. 03-145-10).
The following is the introduction to a policy adopted by the
Plano (Texas) Independent School District, which appears in the
book. The first paragraph is a statement of purpose. The second
outlines risks but affirms the district's commitment to the value
of technology in education. The last paragraph gives a general
statement of expectations.
"The Plano Texas Independent School District provides technology
resources to its students and staff for educational and administrative
purposes. The goal in providing these resources is to promote
educational excellence in the Plano schools by facilitating resource
sharing, innovation, and communication with the support and supervision
of parents, teachers, and support staff. The use of these technology
resources is a privilege, not a right.
"With access to computers and people all over the world comes
the potential availability of materials that may not be considered
of educational value in the context of the school setting. Plano
ISD firmly believes that the value of information, interaction,
and research capability available outweighs the possibility that
users may obtain material that is not consistent with the educational
goals of the district.
"Proper behavior, as it relates to the use of computers, is
not different than proper behavior in all other aspects of Plano
ISD activities. All users are expected to use the computers and
computer networks in a responsible, ethical, and polite manner.
This document is intended to clarify those expectations as they
apply to computer and network usage and is consistent with district
policy."
For further discussion and additional sample AUPs, check the
following links:
"Critiquing
Acceptable Use Policies," by Dave Kinnaman:
Sample
AUPs at Rice University:
Acceptable-use
policy for Newport-Mesa Unified School District and other California
districts
California School
Boards Association
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