Tuesday, May 23, 2006
School district monitoring student blogs
Teen bloggers beware — a school district in Illinois is instituting a new policy.
From an AP report:
The boardof Community High School District 128 voted unanimously on Monday torequire that all students participating in extracurricular activitiessign a pledge agreeing that evidence of "illegal or inappropriate"behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinaryaction.
The rule will take effect at the start of the next school year, officials said.
Districtofficials won't regularly search students' sites, but will monitor themif they get a worrisome tip from another student, a parent or acommunity member.
Mary Greenberg of Lake Bluff, who has a son at Libertyville High School, argued the district is overstepping its bounds.
"I don't think they need to police what students are doing online," she said. "That's my job."
Associate Superintendent Prentiss Lea rebuffed that criticism.
"Theconcept that searching a blog site is an invasion of privacy is almostan oxymoron," he said. "It is called the World Wide Web."
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