JAMES_u01a2.doc

     In simple terms, the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law that requires school districts to provide guidelines to prevent school age children from gaining access to offensive material.  The law was enacted in 2001 as a direct result of the popularity of internet use in education. 

     Technology and internet usage has increased exponentially in my school district over the course of my career.  It is now used, to some degree, in every K-12 classroom.  Hempfield School District adopted their first Responsible Use Policy in December 2006.  The Director of Technology revised the policy in 2009 to reflect several changes associated with social media sites and addressed the issue of cyber-bullying.  The document is rather large (eight pages) and covers a broad range of technology related items.  It covers some areas in detail but is vague in other areas.  For example, “Exemplary behavior is expected on “virtual” field trips, collaborative videoconferences,        and when visiting locations on the Internet”.  I feel that the term “exemplary” should be discussed in more detail.  Overall, the policy is thorough and I believe does a good job covering CIPA laws.

     Staff in my school district cannot override the internet content filter on their own.  This change has occurred in the past two years in the district.  If a staff member wants to use a site that has been black listed, they must complete and online “Tech Ticket”.  This involves creating an online ticket that lists the web site along with a justification as to why it should be white listed.  After submission, the Information Technology staff review the ticket and either white list or deny the web site request. This process can take anywhere from one to three business days.  Many staff members view the procedure for overriding a filter as cumbersome and very time consuming. I tend to agree.  Educators have enough responsibilities during a typical workday.  As a professional, I feel that I should be given some degree of latitude in determining appropriate and educational web sites to use in my classroom.  This is especially true of many Web 2.0 sites now available to educators and students.  This train of thought parallels the CIPA language and seems to be an appropriate alternative.  CIPA states that authorized personnel may have the ability to white list web sites for educational purposes.  This change in our policy would ease a lot of staff frustration in this matter.