News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The internet is a powerful learning tool, giving students access to huge amounts of useful information.
However, those students can also trek into realms where educators and parents don't want them to go -- into pornographic sites, online gambling dens and recruitment centers for hate groups and cults.
The Sisters School District has placed a watchdog at the gateway to the schools' internet connection, hoping to keep kids away from sites where they don't belong.
District technology manager Todd Pilch installed "XSTOP" filtering software on the school district network and launched the program on Monday, April 1.
The filtering software blocks sites within certain defined categories.
"The overall purpose, as I've been told, is to block the most objectionable sites and that would probably fall under pornography," Pilch said.
At Sisters High School, only pornographic sites are blocked at this time. More and different types of sites are blocked at lower grade levels, including sites on crime, cults, games and gambling as well as pornography.
Installing the filter software has placed Sisters schools in the arena of a national debate about internet access. Critics of filtering software argue that the filters block out useful information as well as targeted "illicit" sites.
That seems to be true of the XSTOP software in Sisters.
Social studies teacher Jon Renner notes that the filter won't allow a student to look up Supreme Court actions on pornography.
Renner was pleased to note, however, that "the software is smart enough" to allow students to get information on breast cancer, even though "breast" could be a word that kicks up a red flag.
Pilch acknowledged that blocking out valid sites is a problem with this kind of software -- one that increases the more restrictive the categories become.
"The more we try to block, the more useful things we're going to block," Pilch said.
The new system in Sisters is not set up to be especially restrictive, given that it could be set up to allow students only to view certain pre-approved content.
"There are schools out there that are very close to that restrictive level," Pilch said.
There are alternatives to filtering software and some think that those alternatives might be more appropriate.
Renner noted that "sniffer" software can give an alert when a student ventures astray online. If, for example, a student accesses a pornographic website one or more times, a teacher can be alerted and intervene, creating what Renner calls "a teachable moment."
Pilch agreed that such "teachable moments" can be valuable.
"That's what I would say is the best way to teach kids, to make them responsible for their actions," Pilch said.
However, he noted, "sniffer" software can't prevent a student from running across something objectionable by accident. Pilch said that parents -- nationwide as well as in Sisters -- want their children to be shielded from accidental exposure to pornography and other objectionable material.
It has always been against school rules to use computers to view pornography, to play games or for other inappropriate, non-school related activities.
And Pilch acknowledged that the blocking software can't prevent students from breaking those rules in other ways. If a student brings in a CD with objectionable material on it, the filter can't stop him from bringing it up on the computer.
But Pilch does believe the $6,600 software package will perform well in the job it's expected to do -- keeping pornography and other objectionable materials off the schools' internet.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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