From: btennison@jb.com
Subject: RE: Internet Access and Obscene material in classroom
Date sent: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 14:55:22 -0800

[Response to previous unarchived message]

Last year my son (9th grade) came home from school with instructions on how to build a bomb. I asked him where he got them. He said off the Internet in an unsupervised computer lab and he printed it out to prove to me that no one was monitoring what the kids were doing in "lab." He's such a good kid.

I spoke to the principal about it and told him what Tyrel had accessed on the net. He was surprised and ask that I have Tyrel contact him so Ty could show him how he accessed the material. Tyrel went to the office to speak with the principal on several occasions over three days. The principal was always "busy" so Ty gave up.

I called the principal and asked that he please look into this matter, he said he would. He never did!

I spoke with one of the teachers about my concerns. The teacher stopped what he was doing, went with me to the "lab" and searched the net until he found and blocked the access to the web page. (good teacher). The principal who couldn't be bothered announced at last Monday's board meeting that he would be taking "early retirement" at the end of this school year. Hooray!!!

You see, by the time kids get to high school they are expected to be self directed and responsible for their own learning. It is my personal opinion that the administration doesn't much care what the kids access on the computers as long as they get their high tech technology and all that money, not to mention the new schools that will be required because repairing and re-wiring the old one is not cost effective.

Got to be vigilant or they'll slip one by you.