Parents, schools at odds over Internet

From: The News & Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/education/wake/story/1245635.html
Author: T. Keung Hui, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - No doesn't mean no in the Wake County school system when it comes to parents who want to keep their children away from the Internet at school.

Wake County school officials say the Internet is too valuable an educational tool for them to completely bar students from using it at school, even when parents make that request. It's a case of parental rights pitted against what educators say is a skill that students need to know.

"They will not get unfettered access to school computers if parents object," said Bev White, the Wake school system's chief technology officer. "But there are educational situations where a child needs to go on the Internet with supervision."

That approach isn't good enough for Ranee Cloud, a Wake Forest mother who has tried to block her daughter from getting Internet access at elementary school. Cloud filed a grievance that was recently rejected by the Wake school board.

"The denial of access form is meaningless," Cloud said. "If they're going to ask if you want to deny access, then they should stand by their word."

In contrast, school officials in other Triangle districts say they do try to ban Internet access when parents make the request.

White said only 80 of Wake's more than 139,000 students are denied Internet access by their parents. Though other Triangle districts didn't have exact numbers, they said a very small number of parents deny permission.

The Internet is increasingly being used for tests, research projects and classroom exercises.

"How do you prepare student to be globally competitive in the 21st century without them having Internet access?" asked John Brim, assistant director and chief operating officer of the N.C. Virtual Public School.

Cloud is skeptical of how critical the Internet is at the elementary school level, where her daughter is a third-grader.

"When you're in elementary school, what's the problem with using an encyclopedia to do research, or a library book?" she asked.

But White said there can be a big difference when relying on encyclopedias that are not current. For instance, she said, a student researching U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, would get a much different report from using an encyclopedia from going online.

In an age of tight budgets, White said, it's more economical for schools to have students do research online than buy the latest print materials. Schools that receive federal funding must install software that blocks access to objectionable material.

But Wake, like other school districts, says it can't block all material that might be considered objectionable.

Wake's inability to guarantee 100 percent protection is the reason Cloud doesn't want her 8-year-old daughter to go online at school. "It doesn't make any sense for them to say your child will see pornography and they can't prevent it," Cloud said. "I'm upset that the school system won't take responsibility for the children."

It's not that Cloud is a Luddite. Her husband is a computer programmer, and she has helped people design Web sites for more than a decade. The difference, she says, is that she can monitor her daughter's Internet use at home.

Cloud filled out the form denying her daughter access to the Internet or a school e-mail address. To her surprise, though, Cloud found out that her daughter was getting Internet access at school.
What Cloud didn't know is that the regulations and procedures adopted by administrators to carry out school board policy specifically allow teachers to provide Internet access when it comes to activities they are leading.

White said it's acceptable for a student to receive Internet access when the teacher is providing supervision. Even though the student can control the keyboard, White said, the teacher should be walking around the room to oversee what's on each monitor.

It's not an approach that other school systems say they use.

Terri Sessoms, a spokeswoman for the Johnston County school system, said that if a teacher is operating the mouse and performing the search or activity, a student whose parents denied Internet privileges may participate.

Though it would be handled school by school, teachers would be expected to work something out with parents, said Ray Reitz, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system's chief technology officer.

In Durham, officials say they come up with alternative activities that don't require Internet access.

"You treat a parent who doesn't return their child's Internet access form in the same way as a parent who doesn't return a form for a field trip," said Stacey Wilson-Norman, Durham's assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum and instruction. "You honor that request."

Kids keep adults in the dark about cyber bullying

From: eSchool News
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/around-the-web/index.cfm?i=55478

Primary Topic Channel: Safety & security

Online bullying could be more pervasive than you think.

Three out of four teens were bullied online over the last year, according to a study released this week by psychologists at the University of California at Los Angeles. And while that number may seem high at the outset, only 1 in 10 of those kids told their parents or another adult about it, the study showed.

The anonymous Web-based study surveyed 1,454 kids between the ages of 12 and 17. Of those, 41 percent reported between one and three cyberbullying incidents during the year; 13 percent reported four to six incidents; and 19 percent reported seven or more. In other words, no longer are victims of bullying relegated to the geeks and nerds of yore when it comes to the Internet.

The psychologists published the results of their research in the September issue of the Journal of School Health.

Many teens neglected to tell their parents about the incidents because they believed they "need to learn to deal with it," according to the research. Others kept it to themselves because they feared that their parents would cut back on their Internet access.

"Many parents do not understand how vital the Internet is to their social lives," said Jaana Juvonen, lead study author and a professor of psychology and chair of UCLA's developmental psychology program. "Parents can take detrimental action with good intentions, such as trying to protect their children by not letting them use the Internet at all. That is not likely to help parent-teen relationships or the social lives of their children."

Juvonen said it's important that parents talk with their kids about bullying well before it happens, as well as look for changes in teens' behavior.

However, it's also equally important to teach children the importance of not becoming bullies themselves, is it not? Surely if bullying is this prevalent online, it's not always a one-sided affair.