Stop! Internet Police
In my time at Rainham Mark as a technician I've had to deal with hundreds of incidents relating to students' use (or misuse) of the Internet. Traditionally as a school we monitor and censor the Internet on-site, this is in accordance with our Acceptable Use Policy and grants us the power to filter their content to remove anything inappropriate for school, online gaming websites and illegal content. However, increasingly, SMT are coming to me with issues that didn't occur "on-site", and are in theory totally out of our jurisdiction.
YouTube is a prime example, its actually banned on-site preventing users from accessing it, but nonetheless I am asked, as part of my job, to scan through YouTube on a regular basis looking for any videos of our students or teachers that are inappropriate or taken on-site. When I find any, I report them back to SMT and let them deal with it. My concern is though; we have absolutely no legal grounds to be policing the Internet like this.
Should we? Its a difficult question. If a student launches an underground newsletter online about the school, saying things the school don't want to be said - the school has no grounds to punish the students involved. But thats not what SMT want to hear. Imagine if they did threaten to expel a student, or even go through with it, the publicity that could be stirred up would certainly taint the school's reputation. Surely students have a right to free speech, just like anyone else? RateMyTeacher is another good example of this, students have the ability to post comments and rate their teachers, there is no slander - just students' honest opinions of people.
On the other hand, sometimes my web-policing is for the students own good, indeed for their own protection. Just last week there was an incident involving a student posting videos of themselves stripping naked at various places around the school. Do we not have a duty to protect this minor? Where is the distinction between using Internet policing justifiably to protect students, and misuse of this power protecting the school's reputation?