Parents+and+Guardians

Parents and Guardians,

It is crucial that you understand the important role the internet and online resources will be playing in the lives of your children this upcoming school year. As their teachers, we would like to inform you on why these tools are necessary and how we will be accessing them. Before getting to the details in regards to the internet resources we will be using, We would like to go over how keeping my students safe is first and foremost.

At our school, content on the Internet is required to be filtered by the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA). We want you to all be aware that this certainly eliminates a lot of inappropriate information and websites. However, our school goes beyond these requirements to make sure that inappropriate information that slips by be filtered as well. Above all, it is our mission as educators to teach our students how to be safe while using the Internet, and how to handle situations that they may face. The truth is, no filtration system will be perfect, and it is our duty to explain what to do if one encounters unwanted information on the web. As middle school students, we believe that your children are at an age where they must learn and understand how to use the Internet, and part of that is being prepared when faced with any irrelevant or unwanted information.

In regards to the privacy of your children, we can assure you that no private information will be shared or revealed. Only first names will be used for discussion purposes and e-mail addresses will not be posted. With this, only members of our class, parents of our students and school administrative's will be able to access the blog. This is to ensure that any information regarding your child, is only shared with these specific people. To filter this, we will create a user name and password for the blog that will be sent out to each individual student and parent. Please make sure not to share this user name and password with anyone, so that we can insure the safety of the children. The username-password system will disable comments from strangers, which will ensure communication solely between students and teachers.

We, as educators and mentors, will do our very best to limit the cyber bullying that goes on within the website. We have created a zero-tolerance policy in which the first offense, is the only offense and necessary measures will be taken immediately. We understand that cyber-bullying is a grandiose problem that students often face today, and we will do our best to stop any form of cyber bullying on our website. Cyber-bullying can consist of anything from harsh comments to tampering with another person's work. There is no toleration for this behavior within our classroom, or on this website and necessary measures will be taken in a timely manner.

As much as we can assure you, we would also like to inform you why we are adding blogging to our teaching techniques. Blogging that is done in a safe way is very beneficial to the children, each child will be able to use this blog as an outlet for the passions. We hope to have pages about all different subjects such as sports, animals, interests, etc. The children will be able to communicate with each other, (no public access as mentioned above), through words and pictures. From a parent's point of view, it will be more beneficial in that you will able to go onto the blog whenever you like and just see the progress your child is making and really just be in awe.

Another great benefit of introducing blogging is that it will help to motivate students to learn more and be interested in what they are learning. Blogs allow us to integrate great multimedia into the classroom.

We ask that you please take a moment after reading this letter to sign stating that you agree and understand the conditions of our classroom blog. It is important that we have your acknowledgment in order for us to move forward with the blog. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. The saftey of your child is in our hands and we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that nothing goes wrong. X___ I agree to the conditions stated above__ __x___ I do not agree and do not want my child using this site