Posted by Webmaster, 2/11/10 at 8:18:47 AM.
by Natasha Schuyler and Kathryne Davis
It's crunch time on that big project that you have been working on for so long. You figure that during one of your study halls, you can get some work done because right after school, you have no free time. Then you see a gray screen pop up with the letters YOUR ACCESS HAS BEEN DENIED. You think, it doesn't make sense that the school is blocking you for a history project on communism, or a health project on drugs.
Thirty-six percent of seniors surveyed said they have been blocked very often in their duration at RFA. Every student must take health for graduation, and a part of the course is a project. Many students have commented that they have been blocked trying to complete said project. Teachers take class time to allow students to research various project when more likely than not a student will be blocked. It isn't only health that has this problem; history and English courses do too. Students have been blocked looking up information on authors, like Langston Hughes, and current events for government or economics. As students we have been asked to be aware of issues in the world, past and present, but access to sites with this information is being blocked.
The people who decide on what is considered bad for students, is BOCES, which makes reasonable sense. What doesn't make sense is the filter, which checks to make sure what students are looking up is for educational purposes. If you're researching a topic that has to word "game" in it, good luck trying to find a website that isn't blocked by the filter.
One teacher that has strong feelings on this subject is Government and Economics teacher, Ms. Byrne. She feels that since we live in a world where the Internet is very important, students should be able to be taught with the showing of videos found on websites, such as youtube. With resources like the Internet available, it would be a shame for them not to be used. One resource that can aid a student, are blogs, students can contact experts in the field they are studying to help add depth and accuracy to their paper. Blogs, however, are currently blocked.
With the Internet filters, the students at RFA don't have as many opportunities to learn," Ms. Byrne says. One of the main complaints by teacher is that is takes too long for a request to unblock a website to be granted. Currently, it takes up to two weeks, to unblock a site.
Some kind of filter will always exist, but what it blocks, or even how it blocks can be changed. The district is obligated, by the Children's Internet Protection Act, to have a filter in order to receive a special rate for the internet service. The act loosely defines the parameters of an adequate filter. In essence, anything deemed harmful to minors by the district should be blocked.
Since RFA is a public school, it makes sense to have filters. There are minors who attend this school and the district has to protect the minors from any harm. However, RCS, a school also in Rome, does not have filters. There are more minors there than at RFA. The parents at RCS pay to have their children attend RCS, and they don't receive federal funding, so they don't need to abide by the act.
