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04/10/2006: "Concern over internet sites prompts school action"

Concerns about students’ photos and personal information appearing on internet sites prompted the Crofton Community Schools to tighten internet use rules recently.
Superintendent Randy Anderson mailed a letter to all school district patrons last week citing recent discoveries “that many of the students of Crofton Community School were being depicted on such websites as facebook.com, myface.com, vampirefreaks.com and other such websites.”
“An instructor noticed that a student was on one of those sites during school time,” Anderson explained.
He said school officials investigated the site, posing as an internet user trying to gain access, and were invited onto the site. “We found that (the site) was using the school name and were placing students names and personal information on the site.” That information included such things as phone numbers, addresses pictures of students and their friends and other such information.

“That is a violation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act,” said Anderson. That law prohibits dispersion of student information via the internet without parental permission.
The superintendent said school officials asked all students to remove their information from those sites.
“With all the situations with people who use the internet these days, too many things can happen,” Anderson stated. He noted that young people are particularly vulnerable to the types of people who prey on unsuspecting victims to get personal information, from which they might be able to access financial records or even computer records. Children can be lured into potentially harmful situations by predators who use the internet specifically for that use.
Anderson said the school, working through its internet provider, ESU 1, has upgraded their filtering system which will prevent many of those types of sites from coming up on the school’s internet access.
“The internet can be a very valuable educational tool,” Anderson noted. “But we want it to be a safe environment.” Anderson urged school district parents to take steps at home to monitor what sites their children are visiting during non-school time. “Do not dismiss this matter as being insignificant,” he wrote in his letter. “It is important and you as a parent need to know that harm can come to your child through participation in such websites.”
“We want to make sure the children are safe. They don’t always think about what can potentially do them harm,” Anderson stated. “We felt the students were subject to things that wasn't in their best interest, so we decided to take action.”
He said the school will continue to monitor the students’ computer use during school time.