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CyberLaw Academy at NCaect
By bpace | March 12, 2008
Highlights from David Hostetler Pre-conference Presentation at NCaect…
Free Speech:
Although students do not check all first amendment rights at the school door, students do not have the same rights as adults in public shperes. We need to educate students and parents to understand that the school has the right to discipline students for off campus communication that cause a substantial disruption or foreseeable substantial distruption.
School employees need to be educated to avoid overeation and hasty discipline. You have to stop and ask the question: “Is there a substantial disruption or potential foreseeable substantial disruption?”
N.C.G.S. 14-196.3:
Prohibits electronic communications that
- threaten bodily harm to a person, property damage, or extortion;
- are sent repeatedly for the purpose of “abusing, annoying, threatening, terrifying, harassing, or embarrassing any person”; or
- Knowlingly contain any false statement “concerning death, injury, illness, disfigurement, indecent conduct, or criminal conduct… with the intent to abuse, annoy, threaten, terrify, harass, or embarrass.”
Internet Filtering:
No academic freedom at stake, if there is academic freedom it belongs to the institution, not the individual.
Boring v. Buncombe Co. (4th Cir.)
Privacy:
Give notice of no privacy rights regularly to staff and students. School owns all computer files & records and has right to monitor and search, but not all files or records are public records.
Privilege v. Right:
One question is when will use of the Internet or use of a computer become necessary for a sound basic education? At that point does it become a right rather than a privilege? Are we already there?
Public Meetings Law:
If a majority of the local school board wants to attend a technology or instructional meeting you are planning you are subject to Public Records Laws and must notify local media prior to the meeting.
N.C. Public Records/G.S. 132-1
“Public records” include:
[a]ll documents…photographs, films, sound recordings, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data-processing records,…regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions.
Litigation:
At moment litigation begins, and you are made aware, you are obligated to back up and store everything past, present, and future related to that litigation.
Fair Use Exception:
There is broad protection for educational classroom uses of limited materials for two years or less. Where educators sometimes get in trouble is posting materials online allowing for mass dissemination and thus violating Fair Use. Congress has recently expanded e-copy exceptions to promote instructional uses of online materials.
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Topics: School Administration, Technology Planning, education |