LEUSD Takes On Student Safety In Facebook World

Social networking is rapidly becoming a useful tool in student communications and education.

But controlling how students use social media sites has Lake Elsinore Unified School District officials concerned.

That concern is widespread.

Districts throughout the state are scrambling to have the right programs in place to filter out undesirable sites and keep students on the right Internet and social media track.

To help prevent misuse, the national Schools and Libraries Program, also known as E-rate, requires schools to educate students on social media usage in addition to monitoring the students when they surf the Web on school computers.

E-rate provides discounts on Internet use by schools.

To update the district board on what’s being done to protect children, staff members provided a report on the issue at the September regular board meeting.

The board learned that both teachers and students want greater access to social media sites.

“Teachers want to communicate through these sites,” said J. R. Rea, director IT support services.

And the district’s new Southern California Online Academy also means greater use of Web sites and social media.

Both the Web and social media have their upsides, according to a background sheet used during the September board presentation. It stressed that social networking technologies enable students to connect, collaborate and form virtual communities via the computer and Internet.

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and Ning provide the opportunity to interact.

“On these sites you can let people in,” Rea said.

District staff said the key to protecting children is to first educate them about social networking and then monitor them. The idea is not to track everything a child posts on the Web, but to monitor which sites the student uses.

Also filters can be used to prevent the student from brining up inappropriate sites.

This all ties into E-rate compliance, Rea said.

He said that the Internet and social media is where education is going.

“In 20 years brick-and-mortar classrooms may not be around,” Rea said.

“We are sending laptops home with kids in the online program,” he added. “We need to monitor them and keep them safe.”

Cathy Benham, director, E-rate Consulting Services serving the Los Angeles area, provided additional information to the board. She said the E-rate program is federally funded program that was authorized by Congress in 1996.

Funding is available to qualifying schools every year.

In order to apply for E-rate funding a school must comply with two statutes, the Child Internet Protection Act and the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. Filtering and monitoring are required under the Child Internet Protection Act.

The act also requires schools to protect minors from accessing visual depictions of obscenity, child pornography or harmful material on the Internet.

The Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, which came in response to growth in social media sites, requires education and guidance of children before they use the Web and social media.

“There needs to be an education component,” Benham said.

The act also addresses cyber bullying. Schools must educate students on cyber bullying and respond to students who are victims of cyber bullying.

Cyber bullying is defined as the tormenting, threatening, harassing, humiliating or embarrassing a child, pre-teen or teen on the Internet or interactive digital devices.

New requirements, like the education component and protection from cyber bullying, must be put into school district Internet and social media policies by June 30, 2012.

Also, any district-issued equipment including laptops and iPads need to have filters on them to protect children.