High School District Bans MySpace, LiveJournal and Xanga.
Excerpt from "Quick Notes" of District 215 (Thornton Fractional South High School & Thornton Fractional North High School serving Lansing, Lynwood, Calumet City)
E-mailed to parents March 24th
Is the word "kids" in quotation marks because these high school students are typically age 14-18?
I did log into myspace, and found that the chat categories begin with 20-year-olds.
I also found there are 460 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at T.F. South (Lansing, IL) 211 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at T.F. North (Calumet City, IL), 91 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at Illiana Christian H.S. (Lansing, IL), 28 users between ages of 16-18 currently enrolled at Luther East H.S. (Lansing, IL)
T.F. South has an approx. enrollment of 1600, so almost 29% of the students have a myspace account. Limit it to just the upperclassmen (falling into the 16-18 ages) and it's 57.5% of the juniors & seniors have a myspace account.
Am I missing it...? I couldn't find a chat area on LiveJournal or Xanga.
So why doesn't Dist. 215 have a problem with chat rooms, personal web pages and/or blogs on AOL, Yahoo or MSN Spaces?
OK, there are definitely better uses of student time than logging onto their blogs while they should be doing their assignments in the school computer lab.
Too bad they didn't give the parents more information, or just put out a general 'be aware of what your kids are doing online' article with tips for the parents.
They are in the education business, aren't they?
Where could they have found some resources for parents? Oh yeah, on the library blog. Here's an entry about talking to your kids about using caution when posting photos & personal information online from March 11, 2006. Here's another article about blog safety tips and talking points for parents to discuss online usage with their teens from January 16, 2006.
Will the way the school handled this drive more kids to these websites?
Will some of these teens close their accounts?
And... who contacted the school about myspace?
?
E-mailed to parents March 24th
From the Superintendent: We have been contacted concerning a web site called, Myspace.com. It is a web page that permits 18-32 year olds the opportunity to use a chat room to meet people. It has a poor reputation. The administration has discussed this issue and we also found several other sites similar in nature that also are not good for “kids.” These include Xanga.com and Live Journal.com. All of these sites are blocked on our District network. The administration encourages you to review all websites used by your children. R.K. Wilhite
Is the word "kids" in quotation marks because these high school students are typically age 14-18?
I did log into myspace, and found that the chat categories begin with 20-year-olds.
I also found there are 460 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at T.F. South (Lansing, IL) 211 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at T.F. North (Calumet City, IL), 91 users between ages 16-18 currently enrolled at Illiana Christian H.S. (Lansing, IL), 28 users between ages of 16-18 currently enrolled at Luther East H.S. (Lansing, IL)
T.F. South has an approx. enrollment of 1600, so almost 29% of the students have a myspace account. Limit it to just the upperclassmen (falling into the 16-18 ages) and it's 57.5% of the juniors & seniors have a myspace account.
Am I missing it...? I couldn't find a chat area on LiveJournal or Xanga.
So why doesn't Dist. 215 have a problem with chat rooms, personal web pages and/or blogs on AOL, Yahoo or MSN Spaces?
OK, there are definitely better uses of student time than logging onto their blogs while they should be doing their assignments in the school computer lab.
Too bad they didn't give the parents more information, or just put out a general 'be aware of what your kids are doing online' article with tips for the parents.
They are in the education business, aren't they?
Where could they have found some resources for parents? Oh yeah, on the library blog. Here's an entry about talking to your kids about using caution when posting photos & personal information online from March 11, 2006. Here's another article about blog safety tips and talking points for parents to discuss online usage with their teens from January 16, 2006.
Will the way the school handled this drive more kids to these websites?
Will some of these teens close their accounts?
And... who contacted the school about myspace?
?
posted by digital.brarian at
8:49 PM
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