IL School District to Monitor Student Blogs 438
tinkertim writes "According to a Yahoo article, a school district in Libertyville, IL will be holding students accountable for illegal actions discussed in their MySpace blogs even if such actions in no way involved the school or another student. A spokesperson for the school district was quoted as saying: 'The concept that searching a blog site is an invasion of privacy is almost an oxymoron,' he said. 'It is called the World Wide Web.' Supposedly, no direct monitoring or snooping will be done unless the school receives a report from a concerned parent, community member or other student."
By announcing they will be monitoring... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because school districts aren't equipped or funded to act as general law enforcement agencies, and have more than enough demands on their resources doing what they are supposed to do, without their staff trying to live out their "Internet cop" fantasies.
'splain this to me better (Score:4, Interesting)
what exactly is the school going to do, that they are going to hold me accountable for what I write in my blog..
arrest me? press charges as an educatorial influence?
And about ten minutes after this goes into effect (Score:4, Interesting)
Should be no end of fun for the kids, and I rather suspect that the first several lawyers' fees will end up paid by the district too.
Impersonation (Score:4, Interesting)
Continuation of a Trend (Score:2, Interesting)
While this action quite reasonably offends our sense of liberty and free speech, it is certainly not unprecedented. The fact that students are forced to sign this agreement in order to participate in extracurricular activities is what makes this likely to stand up to scrutiny unless a serious public outcry arises. A choice is given, and as long as students are willing to give up the privilege of participating in extracurriculars (which are not guaranteed/forced on them, unlike education), they are free not to be bound by this agreement.
Schools have been using this gimmick to coerce students into submitting to drug tests for many years now, and as far as I know, it has not been ruled unfair. Not that I support either of these things, as the ultimate effect is to force any student that wants to go to college to either sign the agreement or make up a lot of bogus extracurriculars, but I'm not sure that there's any solid legal argument against it, and there may even be some precedent in its favor.
Re:Back underground (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I think they will just start posting under each others' names.
It is now apparent what the step before "Profit!!" is: snitch.
from the district itself: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Curioser and curioser, and more curioserererer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Curioser and curioser, and more curioserererer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Curioser and curioser, and more curioserererer (Score:3, Interesting)
I know how this feels first hand. In the 6th grade my parents sent me and my two younger sisters to a private school. The Dean was pretty strict, but we were getting a good education, a lot of individual teacher attention and really exceeding in our studies. The second year the Dean decided that we (the students, not just me and my siblings) were rebels that needed to be controlled, which he thought he could do through a strict dress code. The kicker was that it was to be enforced even when we weren't at school. We (supposedly) were not allowed to wear jeans (ever) and the girls had to wear skirts or knee length shorts, always. Even on Saturday. That, and no "excessive jewelry".
We didn't stay much longer. These poor kids in the article though.. I don't imagine they have that luxury.
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But remember (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why can't they focus on education instead... (Score:2, Interesting)
Easy Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Sign up for a myspace account if you don't have one. Exchange them among students. Complain about everyone elses account. Everyone ask every day if they have investigated all complaints. I think the biggest offense here from a liability standpoint would likely be the targeting of some students over others.
I'd also suggest fun with content. It'd be fun to post extensive content on which teachers were less than competent. Nothing libelous or overly inflamatory but it'd be nice to have a post for everytime a teacher was late to class or every time an administrator picked their nose. Just stick to the facts kids. Rat out every shortcoming of the institution and force them to read it all day in and day out. I ran pretty low on the Radar in highschool but I can still think of pleny of shortcommings that they would probably not like to hear about themselves.
I do believe that Libertyville is a farily large school so it should quickly turn into a giant morass.
Have fun people.
Re:But remember (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, of course they did. Because when you're a kid (under 18) and post naked pictures of yourself online, that "self expression" is called child porn, and predators feed off of that stuff.
That's not to say that it is the school's job (IMO, it's not) to be monitoring the activities of students after hours, but if that is their intention, then kids posting naked pictures of themselves should certainly fall under unacceptable behavior.
That said, were I a parent and my kids were expelled for something they did after hours, after making sure my kids were punished so that they don't begin to think I am on their side for what they did, I would sue the school over a denial of free, public education. I don't pay tax money to have the schools pick and choose who can go to school and who can't based on after school activities. And certainly not because the teachers don't like what they see on MySpace. If you have a personal problem with it, bring it to me. Don't deny my kid an education and hurt their future college prospects just because the idiots decided to talk or brag about stuff (that was probably much more mild in real life, or didn't even happen) on MySpace.
Hopefully the state will micromanage my life (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm fine with this policy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Don't forget... (Score:2, Interesting)
So it's perfectly fine to interfere with and mess up a student's education, if someone irrelevant to both the school and the student decides it's "offensive", and makes a complaint?
but more serious issues like physical threats or mental abuse.
Well that still comes under "illegal", and should be handled appropriately. The question here is those things which are legal, but fall under "inappropriate". Can you give me some valid examples?
Like it or not, these kids are minors, and will be treated like minors.
But this logic only makes sense so far as contributing to society. E.g., we decide that kids need an education, so they are forced to even if they don't want to. But this doesn't include enforcing a random person's moral beliefs on other children - if it's not on school time, then that's up to the parents. And it certainly doesn't include that when it does so at the expense of a child's education!
They should be following a path better than just what is legal.
And who decides that path? It's all very well saying "society", but there is no single entity called "society" with a sinle opinion, and these decisions are not made by "society". Your claim it is "society" is highly misleading.
The descisions are made by the school, or by the interfering strangers who decide to complain, because they seem to think they have a say in what another person's child does in their own time. That's not society. Even if you believe that what a child can do should be decided by mob rule (which is pretty absurd), you're still getting a biased representation, as people who believe otherwise aren't going to be making complaints.
Teachers (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess, what, even as friends they are exactly as described. No inclination to teach student show to think for themselves, just pure memorization of facts and tidbits. Hell even the science teacher, who is a very nice lady, doesn't want her students to experiment on their own. They just refuse to teach students the theory of a subject, rather than the plain mechanics. Closest example would be deciphering Shakespeare into the technical components, while never presenting him in his full prose. So of course its boring, and never imparts the whole picture.
Don't get me wrong, these people are full of zeal to impart knowledge to their students. The problem?
They are afraid of the school system. They have to follow some very rigid guidelines, and with administrators refusing to remove their heads from each others rear ends, they have no ability to change the policies.
Fire the administrators, and encourage the teachers to teach the entire picture.
Oh and always remember, those who want power, should be the last to recieve any.