Taylor+White

=Schools Control Students Home Lives: By Taylor White=

Should schools be able to punish students for items they post on the Internet inside and outside of school?

With the Internet becoming a students best friend, the students have access to programs and websites like Twitter and Facebook where they can constantly post status updates and anything they are thinking. Students have even posted messages like "I'm going to blow the school up" and "that teacher is sexy." These tweets or posts have been seen by the school and the students have been punished for slander or for threatening in some cases. Many argue that this is infringing on our First Amendment rights, but where can the government cross the line on what students can and cannot do in there own personal lives on the Internet?

Osborne, Charlie. "Do Schools Have the Right to Expel Students for Tweets?" //ZDNet//. N.p., 1 Apr. 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. .



"Senate Bill Could Restrict Political Commentary | TechFreep Web." //Senate Bill Could Restrict Political Commentary | TechFreep Web//. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. .


 * |||| ==**The Good and the Bad of Censoring and Controlling the Internet in Schools**== ||
 * || ===**Pros**=== || ===**Cons**=== ||
 * || * Students are able to voice their opinions online no matter what the issue is || * Students could post opinions that makes the school look bad and can cause a disturbance in school ||
 * || * If the Internet is not censored then students will be exposed to all things that are out on the Internet and therefore, students will know how to deal with what is really on the Internet || * Parents want to keep there children shelter their children and parents could try to sue the school for letting their children see inappropriate material on the Internet ||
 * || * If there is a bad teacher, then students will be able to warn others through the Internet not to take his/her class because she is a mean, bad, or just not a fun teacher || * When students post different things about the school (good or bad), the posts give different viewers of the material opinions about the school and could be negative ||
 * || * If the Internet was not censored, like in South Carolina, then teachers would be able to teach some relevant material that is blocked now || * If the Internet is censored and schools control what students put up on the Internet, then students will feel like their First Amendment Right is violated ||
 * || * When the Internet is blocked and censored, schools are able to know exactly where the students goes on the Internet and is able to control what all the student sees || * When students are able to up anything they want on the Internet, and if it is directed towards the school, then the school feels that if people see the material, then they will not be able to preform their job to the fullest extent ||
 * || * If schools are able to control what students put on the Internet, then schools will even be able to censor what students post outside of school to make sure the students are not putting up negative material about the school || * If schools control students Internet use outside of school, the students will feel like the school is controlling their lives because many students in today's time spend much of their time on the computer ||

List of Relevant Court Cases
**J.S. v. Bethlehem Area School District, 807 A.2d 803 (Pa. 2002).** This court case is a fundamental court case in establishing freedom of speech online in schools. The student had made a website that showed images that made the teacher look like Hitler and had threats directed toward the teacher. The court case determined that it is not in your rights to make derogatory comments about a student’s teacher and that students do not have the right to create websites in school that makes the school look inadequate.

 This court case is about a high school student creating a fake Internet page on MySpace to portray his principal poorly. The school punished the student even though the event occurred at the student’s grandmother’s house. The court ruled that punishing the student was not justifiable because the action occurred off-campus.
 * Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist//.// ****, No. 07-4465 (3d Cir. Jun. 13, 2011).**

**Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District, 30 F.Supp. 2d 1175 (E.D. Mo. 1998).** A student at Woodland High School created a website that lampooned school officials and contained vulgar language. After a student showed the principal the website, the principal suspended the student for five days. The court ruled that the school did not have the right to suspend the student because the website was created off of campus and did not create a disruption in school.

__What I Think __
Even though many students want the right to post anything of their choice on the Internet, I do not think they should be allowed to do this because they can post negative information about schools and other people. For schools to remain in the high quality they are now, I believe that there should be a change to the Constitution to include what freedoms one has on the Internet, especially with Internet in schools and what children under the age of eighteen can do on the Internet. This change to the Constitution would mostly apply to younger people because they are growing up in an information society in which most of their communication is through the Internet, and they have the capability to post information about others and their school online. Furthermore, I think that all schools should set up rules to prevent students from misusing the Internet. Like in South Carolina, schools should use programs such as IPRISM and LanSchool to prevent their students from accessing sites that are not relevant to school activities.  Schools should set up a system of disciplinary actions that they follow when students post negative information. The system should punish the student for putting the information on the Internet because the information could cause a disruption in school. Even if the information might not cause a disruption in school, the student that posted the information on the Internet should still be punished for bullying even though the bullying was done on a computer. When this happens, schools should follow the bullying policies that they have established in the event of bullying situations.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;"> Overall, I think that school should be able to censor all material that is on the Internet that is not related to the school’s educational process and the school’s extracurricular activities. Students do not have the right to hinder other students learning environment because of what they post on the Internet. Also, students should not be able to bully other students over the Internet without punishment from the school because it affects the safe learning environment that the school has made for all students. Schools do have the right to punish students that post negative information on the Internet that relates to the school; on-campus or off-campus, it does not matter.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Work Cited

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School District, 30 F.Supp. 2d 1175. //LEAGLE.// (E.D. Mo. 1998). Web.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Students Have the Right to Blog." //Blogs//. Ed. Sylvia Engdahl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Bloggers' FAQ on Student Blogging." 2007. //Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context//. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">J.S. v. Bethlehem Area School District, 807 A.2d 803. //Justia US Law.// (Pa. 2002). Web.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist//.//, No. 07-4465. //FindLaw.// (3d Cir. Jun. 13, 2011). Web.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Resnick, Michael. "Blocking Social Networking Web Sites Would Not Make the Internet Safer." //Online Social Networking//. Ed. Sylvia Engdahl. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Current Controversies. Rpt. from NSBA's Letter to the Senate Re. H.R. 5319. 28 July 2006. //Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context//. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. Web.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">"Schools Should Punish Students for Misuse of Networking Sites." //Should Social Networking Websites Be Banned?// Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "The Internet and Public Schools: MySpace.com and Similar Websites Pose New Challenges for School Officials." //School Law Issue of the Month, www.ddtwb.com//. 2006. //Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context//. 28 Nov. 2012. Web.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Willard, Nancy. "Schools Have the Right to Punish Cyberbullies." //Cyberbullying//. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "There Is No Constitutional Right to Be a Cyberbully: Analysis of J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District." //J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District//. Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, 2009. //Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context//. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. Web.