Activity 2E

C&I 335

Summer, 1998

Janeen McCarthy

Ridgely Elementary School

Springfield, Illinois

Summary of

Springfield Public School District 186

Acceptable Use Policy

The District Staff and Students will have access to the Internet and other networks by and through systems established and maintained by the District's Instructional Program Leader for Technology: Users of such systems shall not:

1. Place copyrighted materials on any system without the author's prior approval, or access and use copyrighted materials in a manner that violates applicable law or Board policy.

2. Use any system for commercial benefit.

3. Submit, publish or display defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, obscene, threatening, or illegal information.

4. Commit acts of vandalism in any system.

System used shall be restricted to assigned work in connection with instructional programs of the District. System problems or any violation of District policy, rules or regulations shall be promptly reported to the Instructional Program Leader for Technology.

District 186 also has set a set of Administrative Rules and Regulations governing the appropriate use of E-mail that all District staff members are to be knowledgeable of Parental/guardian approval shall be obtained by Administrators and teachers in advance of showing non-District owned videos or other telecommunication materials of a controversial nature.

When going through the Internet finding out about the AUPs for other schools and districts (classroom CONNECT) I found that District 186 plans compares to other school's plan in the following ways:

District 186 believes that it is important to have a formal policy and that all district staff as well as the students and parents know what this plan entails.

District 186 has open communication with students and parents on how the Internet is being used in the classrooms. Just as in other schools and districts, classroom teachers in District 186 have the parents come into the classrooms to see what is happening in their rooms and tell about the technology being used is one of the areas that is covered.

District 186 does take measures to help keep inappropriate materials out of the schools. Instructional Program Leader for Technology in District 186 keep track of what is going on and report any problems that do occur. District 186 teachers that use the Internet, because of the Acceptable Use Policy, for the most part have their computer work as teacher-guided work or have the students use bookmarked sources.

There is one thing that District 186 does do that some of the other schools and district are doing is to make anyone using a school's Internet connection be required to sign an AUPs and know that it is kept on file as a legal document.