FILE:  IFBGA

Cf:  EFA

INTERNET SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY

SCOPE OF THIS POLICY

This policy is in addition to any other Rapides Parish School Board policies currently in place.  It does not take the place of or wholly supersede any previous policy.  Portions of this policy that conflict with previous policies supersede only the conflicting portion of the previous policy.

Guidelines are provided so that Internet users are aware of the responsibilities they are about to assume.  Responsibilities include efficient, ethical, and legal utilization of network resources.  All users, including students, employees, or any other users of School Board computers, hardware, and School Board network shall abide by all policies of the School Board and any applicable administrative regulations and procedures.

INTERNET PROTECTION MEASURE

A technology protection measure is a hardware and/or software technology that restricts or filters access to specific areas or sites on the Internet.  It provides a measure of protection against access by minors or adults to Internet resources that are obscene, contain child pornography, contain material harmful to minors (with respect to Internet access by minors), or are otherwise inappropriate in an educational environment.  Rapides Parish School District has had an Internet protection measure in place since 1999.  The District uses a CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act)-compliant content filter.  While the filter is very effective in blocking inappropriate content, the Internet is a rapidly expanding resource and no filtering or blocking technology is 100% effective.  The possibility exists that all inappropriate content may not be blocked or that a determined person may find a method to partially or completely circumvent the filtering or blocking method.

As a matter of policy, all Internet access from within Rapides Parish School District will be filtered.  There is no exception to this policy.  In the case of Internet access by minors, the filtering mechanism may not be disabled for any reason.  For access by adults, the filtering mechanism may, but is not required to be, disabled only to enable bona fide research.  Filtering levels for faculty/staff may be set to a more permissive level than the level for students.

If a person feels an Internet site has been blocked in error, a written request from the school or central office department head must be submitted to the Director of Technology who will review the site in question.  If it is deemed that the site is wrongly blocked, the site will be opened.  If there is any question about the appropriateness of the site, the Director of Technology will make a recommendation to the Superintendent for a final decision.

ACCESS BY MINORS TO INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL IN THE INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB

The Internet is a vast and invaluable educational resource.  However, in a worldwide network, there exists a small amount of information that is not appropriate for minors or an educational setting.  Active measures such as filtering Internet access have been taken to minimize the chance of access by minors to these inappropriate materials.  Additionally, as in other school matters, student use of the Internet will be supervised by school staff to reduce the chance a student will access inappropriate material.  In order to educate students on appropriate use of the District system and the Internet, personnel who are responsible for supervising student access to the District’s system will provide age and grade appropriate information to students regarding Internet and cell phones, emphasizing ethical and appropriate use of these resources.  This includes, but is not limited to, information regarding appropriate online behavior, including cyberbullying awareness and response and interacting with other individuals on social networking sites and in chat rooms, as well as areas of concern as authorized in state and federal law.

SAFETY AND SECURITY OF MINORS WHEN USING ELECTRONIC MAIL, CHAT OR OTHER DIRECT COMMUNICATIONS

Due to the problems involved with providing adequate supervision of electronic communications, Rapides Parish School Board will not issue student email accounts except for specific educational purposes.  Additionally, two-way, real-time electronic communication technologies such as Internet-based instant messaging and Internet chat will not be allowed within the District except for specific educational purposes.  Furthermore, the participation by students in asynchronous electronic forums, social networking sites, or bulletin boards that are not exclusively of educational nature is prohibited.  The exception to this is pre-approved, access to such technologies for a specific educational need. Such usage must have prior written approval from the Director of Technology.  Written request for access to these technologies from the school principal or central office department head must be submitted to the Director of Technology for written approval.  If there is a question about the appropriateness of the access, the Director of Technology will make a recommendation to the Superintendent for a final decision.

HACKING, VANDALISM, AND UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

Malicious attempt to harm, deface, degrade, or destroy District equipment, software, or data or the data of another user or system to which the District network is connected is strictly prohibited.  Such action includes but is not limited to intentionally uploading or creating computer viruses, “hacking” of websites, or intentionally degrading or disrupting system performance.  Additionally, attempting to log on to the system by using another person’s password or attempting to access District resources, or those resources connected to the District network, for which the user does not have permissions or rights is prohibited.  These actions will be viewed as violations of District guidelines and policy and, possibly, as criminal activity under applicable state and federal laws.  Sharing any user account information with others is prohibited.

UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of confidential personal identification information regarding minors are prohibited.  Requests for passwords will never be requested via email and any such requests should be regarded as unauthorized and should be immediately reported to the school principal or department head.  Requests for confidential personal information regarding students or staff should not be honored via email.  Such requests should always occur by secure means.  All School Board policies, state, and federal laws should be followed when a request for personal information of any sort is made.

MEASURES RESTRICTING ACCESS BY MINORS TO INAPPROPRIATE MATERIALS

The safety and protection of students while using the Internet or District network resources is of primary importance.  Therefore, active measures will be taken to restrict, to the maximum extent reasonably possible, students’ access to inappropriate material on the Internet and District network.  The first of these measures is the filtering of all Internet access in the District as described above.  As noted before, no filtering system is perfect and cannot substitute for staff supervision of student Internet use.  Therefore, students are allowed to use computers attached to the District network only when supervised or granted permission by a staff member responsible for their supervision.  To assist in the supervision process, computers that are attached to the network will, to the extent allowed by the individual room, be place to maximize staff supervision of students using the system.  As noted above, forms of electronic direct, real-time communication such as instant messaging and Internet chat are very difficult to supervise and the instant nature of the communication increases the danger that inappropriate messages will be sent or received.  Because of the difficulty in supervising this type of communication, it is prohibited as outlined above.

EMAIL AND GENERAL TECHNOLOGY GUIDELINES

• Email, web access, and other electronic communications should not be considered private.  While it is a violation of policy for a user or student to attempt to gain access to information for which they do not have authorization, authorized staff may monitor or examine email, file folders, and communications to maintain system integrity, to ensure users are using the system responsibly, or for any other reasonable purpose.
  
  

• The hardware, software, and networks that the Rapides Parish School District email system operates on have been purchased with public funds.  For this reason, it should not be considered a private, personal form of communication.  Although authorized staff does not actively monitor email or other electronic communications, contents of any communication of this type are governed by applicable public records law.
  
  

• District computers, software, networks, and Internet access are provided to support the administrative and instructional functions of Rapides Parish School District.  These resources are to be used primarily for school and district-related purposes.  Incidental personal use of district technology resources or equipment must not interfere with the employee’s job performance or student learning.  Additionally, such use must not violate this or any other School Board policy, must not damage the district’s hardware, software, or networks, or significantly degrade the quality of service of the District’s technology resources.
  
  

• Confidential personal information on any staff member or student shall not be released by email without appropriate, approved encryption of any such messages.
  
  

• All users must follow existing copyright laws and restrictions regarding computer software and must not use District computer systems to violate any software license agreement, or any applicable federal, state, or local laws.
  
  

• All web pages or electronic publications created by any organization, staff, student, or other person that are housed on the District’s computer systems will be subject to treatment as district-sponsored publications.  Therefore, the district reserves the right to exercise editorial control over the content of these web pages or publications.  Only content that supports the administrative, instructional, or other legitimate mission of the school or department will be allowed on District web sites.  Content of all District web sites must conform to the Student Web Policy.  Additionally, no web page that represents any school, department, organization, or person of the Rapides Parish School Board may be published on a web server that is outside of the District network without written permission of the Director of Technology.
  
  

• District web pages or publications are not considered to be open, public forums.  No such public forum may be created on any district web site to receive input from the public on any issue, educational or otherwise.  District web sites shall be considered closed forums and shall be used only to transmit information to the public unless specifically approved in writing by the Superintendent.
  
  

• District sponsored web sites may contain links to web sites that are outside of the District site.  While district personnel will make every reasonable effort to research links for appropriateness, these third party sites are not under the control of the District and Rapides Parish School District is not responsible for the contents of any linked site, any link contained within the linked site, or any changes or update to the linked site that may change its appropriateness.  These links are provided as a convenience to users and their inclusion does not imply endorsement of these sites by Rapides Parish School Board.
  
  

• Students, faculty, staff, or other individuals bringing, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, racist, gang-related, hate, or other inappropriate material into the District’s electronic environment are subject to applicable District policies and federal, state, or local laws.  Appropriate disciplinary action or criminal charges may be applied to such actions. Staff members who knowingly bring obscene, vulgar, pornographic, racist, gang-related, hate or other inappropriate material into the District’s electronic environment will be subject to disciplinary action or charges in accordance with District policies or federal, state, and local laws.
  
  

• State law (La. Rev. Stat. Ann. Rev. §17:81Q) and School Board policy GAMHA, Electronic Communications Between Employees and Students, prohibit electronic communications between School Board employees and students unless those communications are related to educational services provided to the student.  Electronic communications between School Board employees and students regardless who initiates the communications are prohibited when those communications may be viewed as derogatory, sexual, lewd in content, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, simple fraternization, or suggestive in nature.  Violation of law or policy may result in discipline to the student or employee, including dismissal.
  
  

• Games and other software that are not of specific educational or administrative nature should not be placed on any District computer.  All software that is installed on District computers must be for a specific educational or administrative purpose.  The educational purpose must be documented by teacher lesson plans.  Educational software must address a benchmark, standard, or lesson plan.  Excluded from this are programs that are packaged with computer operating systems, utility programs such as anti-virus software, or utility software that enhances access to a computer’s resources such as multimedia utility software.  If there is a question about the appropriateness of particular software title, a request in writing should be made to the Director of Technology.

VIOLATION OF POLICY

In the case of students, the violation of any policy may result in the cancellation of user privileges and/or disciplinary action including expulsion or suspension.  In the case of staff, the violation of any policy may result in the cancellation of user privileges and/or disciplinary action in accordance with tenure laws and due process provisions.  Such acts may also result in criminal prosecution under applicable state and federal laws.  In the case where such actions result in the District incurring costs to restore the network system, hardware, software, or data, the School Board will require restitution for restoration costs.

Ref:    20 USC 7131 (Internet Safety)

47 USC 254 (Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA))

47 CFR 54.520 (Children's Internet Protection Act Certifications for Schools and Libraries)

La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§17:81, 17:100.7, 17:280

Board minutes, 4-7-98, 6-17-02, 8-2-05, 5-5-09, 8-7-12, 2-5-13, 10-2-18

Rapides Parish School Board