Their mission would be to provide educational background for parents, work with the administration to set school policy as it relates to acceptable technology use in the schoolhouse, and offer guidelines for our school community to implement in the home so that we are all on the same page.
Below are some suggestions that came out of a sharing session that followed the parent forum. We encourage you to begin the practice of digital responsibility in your homes now.
- No cell phones during homework (that includes middle school). Ipads and Computers are better for IXL and other technology assignments.
- Limit screen time during the week. No more than 2 hours a day for grades 5-8. No more than 1 hour 4th and under.
- Power down cell phones at night. (Physicians suggest that children need between 10 and 11 hours of continuous sleep a night for optimal health. Ideally children should “park” their cell phones in their parents bedroom or a common area one hour before going to bed.
- Children should not know their iTunes password (that way you know everything that gets installed).
- Explicit content should be disabled on Safari and any other web browser they have access to (this will also disable their ability to delete history)
- K9 web filtering (high-end tool that’s FREE for personal use) should be installed on ALL PCs and Macs they have access to.
- It’s not necessary to monitor every single thing they do, but let them know you’ll be checking occasionally.
Most importantly, don’t be afraid to be the bad guy. Talk and educate your children continuously, as well as educating yourself on how to manage technology (look for helpful sites such as www.netsmartz.org). We want to make sure at the end of the day that technology is seen as a good and useful tool. We do not want to be the technology police in our homes; we just want to grow digitally responsible children keeping them safe and healthy.
Have a Blessed Easter Break!
Lynn Brown, Principal