PSD : Board of Education Policy 6142.10 (AUP) • Adopted: 1996 • Revised: 10/2006
PSD :Board of Education Policy: 6142.11 (Acceptable Web Posting Policy) • Adopted: 4/2003
Acceptable Use Policy (Annotated by C. Nowalk - August 2007)Background
• The E-mail and Voice Mail systems in the PSD were put in place to provide electronic message storage and retrieval capabilities for the purposes of eliminating use and subsequent waste of printing resources and associated clutter.
• Users need to be encouraged to utilize electronic messaging and information services to promote the exchange of data and further education and research in accordance with the goals of the PSD as well as the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards. It should also facilitate academic development, personal growth, and respect for diversity through technology use, information gathering, critical thinking, evaluation skills and communication skills. Use of electronic messaging and information services should promote freedom of access to the world community as a fundamental right of citizens promoting human interaction in a democratic society.
Terms and Conditions
• Educators are responsible for development of research skills for students to access the Internet.
• The PSD will make every reasonable effort to reduce the risk of staff and student exposure to objectionable material.
• NOTE: If you prefer that your son/daughter not be provided this educational opportunity, please notify the building administrator.
Code of Ethics
• Users will not access district communications services for exchange of inaccurate, inflammatory or offensive materials of any kind.
• Users will not access district communications services for private, commercial, political, or religious purposes or any illegal activity.
• Users will conform to copyright laws regarding reasonable use.
Responsibility
• Users should be courteous, sensitive, and considerate of others. If in doubt about a message, do not send it.
• Users are urged to report any problems or violations to school officials immediately.
• Communications on the Internet are often public in nature and are monitored routinely by Internet providers and/or law enforcement agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Consequences
• Disciplinary actions regarding inappropriate student behavior will be determined at the building level consistent with existing practice.
• Violations will result in loss of Internet access privileges. When applicable, law enforcement agencies may be involved.
FACULTY E-MAIL
• The PSD respects the individual privacy of employees. However, employee privacy does not extend to the employee's work-related conduct or to the use of Board of Education-provided equipment or supplies.
Personal Use
• Because the Phillipsburg Board of Education provides the electronic mail system to assist you in the performance of your job, you should use it for official school business. Since messages cannot be absolutely secured from unauthorized reading, and may be collected for legal proceedings, you should not use e-mail to transmit any messages you would not want read by a third party. For example, you should not use the PSD's e-mail:• for gossip, including personal information about yourself or others • for forwarding messages under circumstances likely to embarrass the sender • for emotional responses to business correspondence or work situations • for such purposes as soliciting or proselytizing for commercial ventures, religious or personal causes or outside organizations or other similar, non-job-related solicitations.
• In some corporations, misusing the e-mail system has resulted in disciplinary action up to and including termination. Under current laws, creating an environment where another employee or a student feels uncomfortable or harassed can be grounds for damages. As an employer, the Phillipsburg Board of Education cannot condone any type of harassment. • You may not use the PSD's e-mail system in any way that may be seen as insulting, disruptive, or offensive by other persons, or harmful to morale. Examples of forbidden transmissions include: • sexually-explicit messages, cartoons, or jokes • unwelcome propositions or love letters • ethnic or racial slurs • any other message that can be construed to be harassment or disparagement of others based on their sex, race, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or religious or political beliefs.
Appropriate School Use
Teachers, support staff, administrators and other school board employees use e-mail throughout the United States on a daily basis. Many school-related tasks can be performed more easily with regular use of e-mail: articulation with teachers in another school; sharing lesson plans; collaborative projects with many participants from schools far and near; planning meetings; and communications with parents
Message Security
This electronic mail system has been installed by the PSD to facilitate educational communications. Although each employee has an individual password to access this system, the system belongs to the Board of Education. The contents of e-mail communications are vulnerable to subpoena by the courts. Therefore, you should not assume that messages are confidential. Back-up copies of e-mail may be maintained and referenced for business and legal reasons.
STUDENT E-MAIL
• Student safety should be paramount in all of our uses of the Internet.
• PSD students will have e-mail access only under their teacher's direct supervision using a classroom account. The need for a classroom account must be predicated by an educational objective and correlated with educational goals in the classroom. The account will be activated on an as needed basis at the request of the classroom teacher to the building instructional technology teacher, who will then contact the district e-mail administrator.
• Both student, parent and building administrator must sign an Account Agreement to be granted an individual e-mail account. This Agreement must be renewed on an annual basis. Parents and/or administrators can withdraw their approval at any time.
• (S)tudents will not be permitted to activate or use previously activated web-based accounts (hotmail, yahoo mail etc.) on school district property.
WEB RELATED GUIDELINES
Statement of purpose: the primary purpose of a school's site on the World Wide Web is to communicate effectively with its community. The school governance system will retain full control over the content. A school may elect to have its web site serve additional purposes related to its educational mission. These include but are not limited to: student newspaper online publication; yearbook; student literary magazines. teacher-created class information; and publication of appropriate student class work
Maintenance
The school district webmaster will designate a web site administrator, a staff member who will be responsible for ensuring that the school's web site is properly maintained in accordance with school policy, district policy, and the law.
General Content Limitations
Teachers may maintain instructional sites on the school's web site. They may also maintain and link to instructional sites on remote servers, especially servers designed for educational use, provided that they conform to all parts of this policy. School web sites will not link to teacher personal sites. (See definitions: personal site/instructional site)
Privacy
Because Internet publications are available to the entire world, special care should be taken to protect the privacy of students.
• No identifiable information about students, such as name, pictures, home addresses, and telephone numbers, will be included on a web site.
• With parental consent, examples of student work may be published to the web minus any identifiable characteristics.
• Should there be a need for posting of a group photo of students, all identifiable characteristics will be removed from the photo.
Student Generated Content
A school's web policy may allow for the inclusion of sections devoted to online publication of student newspapers, yearbooks, and/or literary magazines.