Internet Access Policy
Individual Student Internet Access:
Codes of Conduct, Supervision, & Filters
The Kern High School District provides Internet access at District sites to further the educational mission of the District. When bringing Internet opportunities into the classroom and the school library where the student may use the Internet for research and individual projects, the District must attempt to ensure that this access is provided responsibly in a fashion consistent with its mission. The Kern High School District has a three-pronged approach to ensuring that student access is safe, appropriate, and represents the educational partnership between home and school. The key elements include:
Codes of Conduct, Supervision, & Filters
The Kern High School District provides Internet access at District sites to further the educational mission of the District. When bringing Internet opportunities into the classroom and the school library where the student may use the Internet for research and individual projects, the District must attempt to ensure that this access is provided responsibly in a fashion consistent with its mission. The Kern High School District has a three-pronged approach to ensuring that student access is safe, appropriate, and represents the educational partnership between home and school. The key elements include:
- Agreement by the student and the student’s parents to abide by and support the Student Code of Conduct for the Kern High School District Electronic Community.
- Supervision by responsible adults enabled by the Internet designation on the student’s identification card. Upon receipt of the Student Code of Conduct for the Kern High School District Electronic Community with parent and student signatures, an Internet designation is added to the student’s picture identification card.
- As a supplement to the student agreement and adult supervision and as a protection against inadvertent access to inappropriate material, Kern High School District has put in place a proxy server/firewall blocking tens of thousands of inappropriate sites. Currently, the District is using industry standard content filtering.
- Kern High School District provides Internet access as an adjunct to its curriculum and filters content both to avoid access to inappropriate material and ensure that curriculum applications have sufficient bandwidth so that teachers and students can access them reliably and with the speed necessary for effective classroom use. Given the number of computers accessing the Internet and the limitations of the Internet bandwidth available, the District currently blocks most high bandwidth applications such as video and audio.
- Teachers may request that sites listed as blocked be opened up. Such requests are reviewed by IST staff. The list of blocked categories and sites is intended to both prevent inappropriate access and ensure speedy access to academic material.
- Kern High School District staff’s use of District computers and networks shall be in accordance with District policies. Staff may post web pages and use e-mail in line with their professional responsibilities in these areas.
- Internet access, properly used, is a tremendously valuable educational resource. Parents may want to consider providing such access at home and should carefully consider issues of supervision and whether blocking software and/or filtering services are appropriate in their home.