School Internet Policies

1062 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Why free speech is important to students

Students today receive discipline from school officials for expressing their opinions online. On social media sites, some school administrators monitor students’ activity using fake accounts to pry into their lives. However, schools do not have the authority to punish students for what they post on the internet when off campus. Since high school students use social networking sites to connect with others and express their ideas, school officials should not discipline students for what they post online because students have a right to freedom of expression, they have a right to privacy, and they have their own parents to monitor them.
In 1960, the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case provided a strong protection for student speech that did not cause substantial disruption (Belnap). Schools cannot restrain student speech unless it "substantially interferes with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school (Morse)." Unfortunately, students have been denied their rights, “At schools throughout the country, students are being suspended for comments posted about their school, peers, or pictures showing illegal or inappropriate things such as underage drinking” (Thompson). Most schools currently have filters installed so students cannot access social media and inappropriate sites while on school grounds (“Internet”). Additionally, at some point in history, Congress believed they could control what people could see on web sites.
Today educators who monitor students on social media, find advantages to watching students online, but can face some legal issues. If schools monitor student activity online, they can take action against cyber bullying. Also, students who perform illegal ...

... middle of paper ...

...eceive discipline and help (Thompson). Cyber bullying issues receive attention; the tormentor receives discipline and the victims receive assistance (Blacher). Students also think twice about what they post online, and learn they cannot hurt someone without consequences.
School officials do not have the authority to punish students for what they post on the internet. Students have a right to freedom of expression and cannot receive punishment for their opinions they post online. Students also have a right to privacy; schools should not pry into their lives which occur out of the school learning environment. Finally, parents have the responsibility to give their children guidance on the internet, and discipline them for any inappropriate actions they perform. Schools dictating students’ lives would corrupt their views, and wrongly influence the generations to come.

Show More
Related

  • Scrutinizing Dana Fleming's Article on Protecting College Social Network Users from Themselves

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    In an article written in the New England Journal of Higher Education, 2008 issue, by Dana Fleming, “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” Fleming poses the question of responsibility in monitoring students’ online social networking activities. Fleming’s purpose is to impress upon the readers the need for education institutions to state the guidelines and rules governing social networking, and “to treat them like any other university activity, subject to the school’s code of conduct and applicable state and federal laws” (443). She creates a dramatic tone in order to convey to her readers the idea that social networking can be sinister and their effects inescapable. Dana L. Fleming is a Boston area attorney who specializes in higher education law, with the mission of the New England Journal of Higher Education to engage and assist leaders in the assessment, development, and implementation of sound education practices and policies of regional significance. However, while Dana Fleming emphasizes the horror stories of social networking, she scatters her thoughts throughout this article springing from one idea to attempting to persuade her intended audience then juxtaposed stories about minors being hurt by poor social networking decisions contrasting the topic suggested in her title.

    Read More

  • Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    Higher education law attorney Dana L. Fleming voices her controversial opinion in favor of institutionalized involvement in social network protection in her article “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” (Fleming). Posted in the New England Journal of Higher Education, winter of 2008 issue, Fleming poses the question of responsibility in monitoring students’ online social networking activities. With a growing population of students registering on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, she introduces the concern of safety by saying, “like lawmakers, college administrators have not yet determined how to handle the unique issues posed by the public display of their students’ indiscretions.” However, while Dana Fleming emphasizes the horror stories of social networking gone-bad, she neglects the many positive aspects of these websites and suggests school involvement in monitoring these sites when the role of monitoring should lie with parents or the adult user.

    Read More

  • Youthful Indiscretions By Dana Fleming

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” Dana Fleming presents an essay concerning the safety of social networking sites and how Universities can deal and prevent problems. This article is targeted towards school administrators, faculty, and a social networking user audience who will either agree or disagree with her statement. I believe Fleming presents an excellent, substantial case for why she reasons the way she does. Fleming gives a sound, logical argument according to Toulmin’s Schema. This essay has an evident enthymeme, which has a claim and reasons why she believes in that way. Toulmin refers to this as “grounds."

    Read More

  • Should Schools Be Allowed to Limit Students’ Online Speech?

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    Should schools be able to restrict and regulate what students say on the internet ?

    Read More

  • Cyberbullying Persuasive Essay

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    This evidence helps explain why schools should not limit students’ online speech because it didn’t cause a substantial disruption. A reason why schools should not limit students online speech is because of the violation of constitutional rights. We question reports of increasing threats to students online. The number of young people using digital technologies is increasing rapidly, problems online are also expected to rise, simply as a result of increased use. Bullying also has a long history.

    Read More

  • First Amendment Rights In School Essay

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    Which include danger to the school or any of the students and this should be the only way teachers and schools can restrict students’ rights. but schools tend to go too far restricting students’ rights “The principal had ordered the stories removed from the paper because he believed the story about teen pregnancy was inappropriate for some of the younger students at the school, based on its discussion of sexual activity and birth control”(What are the free expression rights of students in public schools under the First Amendment?) a student though that this was appropriate for the school to read and it was but the officials at the school did not think the same way. also another case Bazaar v. Fortune officials tried to stop publication of a book just because it had a few words in it that they did not like.(The First Amendment and Public Schools) this is taking there restrictions just too far. The government should be able to set guidelines of what the immediate danger is and what kind of expression goes way too far and have it sent out to all the schools in the United States. This might help schools from restricting our

    Read More

  • Censorship of the Internet

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many different opinions backing and opposing regulations of the web. People argue that because it can be freely accessed by anyone, there is a high possibility that their children will be exposed too explicit websites, for example pop up websites containing pornography. This threats their innocence and damages their views on the world around them. Other issues parents have is with cyber bulling, as 43% of kids have been bullied online at one point in their lives. Online, people have the ability to write anonymously, encouraging them to be more explicit in their opinions, as they feel there will be no repercussions. This makes the internet an unhealthy medium, as these views can show prejudice and insult others. 'Stranger danger' is another dilemma, especially when there are children exploring the internet, and revealing too much information to the wrong people, because of false pretence. In 2006, 14% of adolescence posted their names, addresses, numbers or schools.

    Read More

  • Social Media Restrictions

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Track back to 15 to 25 years ago. An unfortunate student would normally get bullied at school with physical acts of violence, but as soon as that student arrives at his home he or she is presumed safe. Cyber bullying does not allow this luxury. Cyber bullying occurs over the information waves of the internet, with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google plus. Which is why the guidelines must be improved or that children should not be allowed to access such sites entirely. With a the tools of direct messaging and posting videos cyber bullying can follow children to their home, beyond the school playground, seven days a week 24 hours a day. These acts of emotional trauma occur on a child’s computer and smartphone. For this reason it is more difficult to monitor...

    Read More

  • Student Internet Filters

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The school board currently uses a central firewall that is used to block any websites that contain adult content , gaming , and inappropriate material. Watson wants the school board to consider progression of the filters grade by grade”.(source 1). The school does have the right to block anything. The age in students should matter the older student should not be held to the same standard as younger students.

    Read More

  • High School Student Monitoring

    516 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are two main points why schools should not be able to monitor student accounts on social media because some may take it as an attack towards their privacy given to them by the fourth amendment. The other point is that the required resources needed to be used while monitoring can be excessive. Now during the years in high school students learn more about the functions of the government and the rights given to them by the constitution. It is also known that during the high school years students prefer privacy and to an extreme extent go against authority. The students after being taught the fourth amendment which is the right to privacy, they can argue that having their social media monitored can be counted as an unreasonable search without warrant.

    Read More

  • Why Should The Social Media Should Be Regulated?

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cyber bullying and online crime must be put at a stop. Parents and teachers should play a great role in regulating what their kids are doing on social media. Parents give their children smart phones, tablets, and computers but they fail to convey the proper way of using those tools. They should teach them the rules of being on social media by telling them from right to wrong. Parents don’t give their children a car to use without telling them the proper rules of how to drive the car. If they don’t teach them how to drive the car then that child wouldn’t know what to do about his or her car and may lead to an accident. This is the same way of how parents should also teach their kids of how to regulate on social media. There are many privacy settings on these social network sites which some kids are not aware off or simply do not care about. We should put an aware of these settings to them and teach them from right to wrong. Parents and teachers should also encourage their kids to come talk to them if they are facing any type of

    Read More

  • Social Media In Schools Essay

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all, schools should keep students focused during classes. By giving students access to social media for anything in the class, that starts leading to these issues. “All universities have been struggling to balance freedom of speech and the right to express an opinion, with reasonable

    Read More

  • Should the Internet Be Censored?

    1443 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Internet of today has become more than anyone could have ever imagined 20 years ago becoming the only resource worth using because of its wide variety, speed, and relevancy making libraries a thing of the past. In our society we use the internet for everything from using search engines on the internet to look at pornography images to buying and trading stock in hopes to turn a profit all accessed by a mouse click away. The internet in a sense is the first amendment because of its freedom of speech. That isn’t to say all people have become accustomed to the internet and its free flowing infrastructure. Others who oppose the internet and say it should be censored argue that it poses as a security risk for young children who roam the internet unsupervised could result in a child view inappropriate material and fear for young children potentially communicating with sexual predators over the internet. Parents often have expressed their distaste with the internet infrastructure because internet filers are not always impeccable. Another argument is Cyberbullying emerging as a problem for young teens socializing on social media sites. Cyberbullying can hurt a person’s self-esteem emotionally and in some cases of Cyberbullying resulting in some teens committing suicide. Cyberbullying among teens and young adult groups has promoted violence, and bad behavior in youth as...

    Read More

  • Internet restrictions

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    I believe that World Wide Web restrictions should not be allowed. I believe that they are not helpful to the people that use the World Wide Web. I feel that the restrictions on the World Wide Web at school are too strict. At school most sites you try to view are prohibited and they are totally harmless sites. I feel that at school the only restrictions that should be put on the World Wide Web are restrictions to pornographic sites. Even these sites should not be blocked because some harmless sites have web addresses that would seem like a pornographic site but end up being a totally harmless site. With the block at school some of these harmless sites are blocked and therefor limiting the web user who made need information from sites like these. Most students know better than to visit pornographic sites at school. So this block that forbids students to visit most sites just hurts the students learning ability in some cases. There should not be a block on the World Wide Web at school and if a student does visit a pornographic site then they should be prosecuted or disciplined.

    Read More

  • Internet in Schools

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everything revolves around the internet these days. Every business, big or small has a internet website for you to visit. Let’s face it, the internet is not going away, we as a people must learn to use this tool and not think of it as a negative thing. The internet must be used positively to benefit us. We can find anything we want through the internet. The internet can be abused but we must educate our children so they can use it effectively to their advantage. We definitely need to make most schools have the internet in classrooms, there is no doubt about it.

    Read More

More about School Internet Policies

Open Document