The measures to ensure the cybersafety of Crawford County Schools outlined in this document are based on our core values. The school's computer network, Internet access facilities, computers and other school technology equipment/devices bring great benefits to the teaching and learning programs at Crawford County Schools, and to the effective operation of the school. Our school has rigorous cybersafety practices in place, which include cybersafety use agreements for all school staff and students.
The overall goal of the district/school in this matter is to create and maintain a cybersafety culture which is in keeping with the values of the school, and legislative and professional obligations. This use agreement includes information about your obligations, responsibilities, and the nature of possible consequences associated with cybersafety breaches which undermine the safety of the school environment.
1. Cybersafety use agreements
1.1 All staff, students, and volunteers, whether or not they make use of the school's computer network, Internet access facilities, computers and other technology equipment/devices in the school environment, will be issued with a use agreement.
1.2 Staff is required to read these pages carefully and return the signed use agreement form in Section C to the school Human Resource office for filing.
1.3 The school's computer network, Internet access facilities, computers and other school technology equipment/devices are for educational purposes appropriate to the school environment. Staff may also use school technology for professional development and personal use which is both reasonable and appropriate to the school environment. This applies whether the technology equipment is owned or leased either partially or wholly by the school, and used on or off the school site.
1.4 Any staff member who has a signed use agreement with the school and allows another person who does not have a signed use agreement to use the school technology is responsible for that use.
2. The use of any privately-owned/leased technology equipment/devices on the school site, or at any school-related activity must be appropriate to the school environment. This includes any images or material present/stored on privately-owned/leased technology equipment/devices brought onto the school site, or to any school-related activity. This also includes the use of mobile phones.
3. When using school technology, or privately-owned technology on the school site or at any school-related activity, users must not:
Initiate access to inappropriate or illegal material
Save or distribute such material by copying, storing, printing or showing to other people.
4. Users must not use any electronic communication (e.g. email, text) in a way that could cause offense to others or harass or harm them, put anyone at potential risk, or in any other way be inappropriate to the school environment.
5. Staff is reminded to be aware of professional and ethical obligations when communicating
via technology with students outside school hours.
6. Users must not attempt to download, install or connect any software or hardware onto school technology equipment, or utilize such software/hardware unless authorized by the technology director.
7. All material submitted for publication on the school website/intranet(s) should be appropriate to the school environment. Such material can be posted only by those given the authority to do so by school/district administration.
8. All school technology equipment/devices should be cared for in a responsible manner. Any damage, loss or theft must be reported immediately to the technology director.
9. All users are expected to practice sensible use to limit wastage of computer resources or bandwidth. This includes avoiding unnecessary printing, unnecessary Internet access, uploads or downloads.
10. The users of school technology equipment and devices must comply with Copyright rules and any licensing agreements relating to original work. Users who infringe copyright may be personally liable.
11. Passwords must be strong, kept confidential and not shared with anyone else. A strong password is at least 8 characters in length with a mix of lower case (abd ...) and uppercase (ABC ...) letters, symbols (#*@ ...) and numerals (123 ...).
12. Users should not allow any other person access to any equipment/device logged in under their own user account, unless with special permission from technology lab instructor/media specialist.
13. The principles of confidentiality and privacy extend to accessing, inadvertently viewing or disclosing information about staff, or students and their families, stored on the school network or any technology device.
14. Dealing with incidents
14.1 Staff must follow procedures relating to the school cybersafety incident report.
14.2 Any incidents involving the unintentional or deliberate accessing of inappropriate material by staff or students must be recorded in writing and documented and kept on file with the date, time and other relevant details.
In the event of access of such material, users should:
1. Not show others
2. Close or minimize the window, and
3. Report the incident as soon as practical to the cybersafety administrator.
14.3 If an incident involves inappropriate material or activities of a serious nature, or is suspected of being illegal, it is necessary for the incident to be reported to administration IMMEDIATELY.
15. Any electronic data or files created or modified on behalf of Crawford County Schools
on any technology, regardless of who owns the technology, are the property of Crawford County Schools.
16. Monitoring by the school
16.1 The school may monitor traffic and material sent and received using the school's technology infrastructures.
16.2 The school reserves the right to deploy filtering and/or monitoring software where appropriate to restrict access to certain sites and data, including email.
16.3 Users must not attempt to circumvent filtering or monitoring.
17. Breaches of the agreement
17.1 A breach of the use agreement may constitute a breach of discipline and may result in a finding of serious misconduct. A serious breach of discipline would include involvement with objectionable material, antisocial activities such as harassment or misuse of the school technology in a manner that could be harmful to the safety of the school or call into question the user's suitability to be in a school environment.
17.2 If there is a suspected breach of the use agreement involving privately-owned technology on the school site or at a school-related activity, the matter may be investigated by the school. The school may request permission to audit that equipment/device(s) as part of its investigation into the alleged incident.
17.3 Involvement with material which is deemed 'objectionable' is serious, and in addition to any inquiry undertaken by the school, the applicable agency involved with investigating offenses may be notified at the commencement, during or after the school's investigation.
18. The school reserves the right to conduct an internal audit of its computer network, Internet access facilities, computers and other school technology equipment/devices, or commission an independent audit. If deemed necessary, this audit will include any stored content, and all aspects of its use, including email. An audit may include any laptops provided by or subsidized by/through the school or provided/subsidized by the district.
Please note that conducting an audit does not give any representative of Crawford County Schools the right to enter the home of school personnel, nor the right to seize or search any technology equipment/devices belonging to that person, except to the extent permitted by law.
19. Queries or concerns
Staff should take any queries or concerns regarding technical matters to the technology director. Queries or concerns regarding other cybersafety issues should be taken to the cybersafety administrator, or to the principal. In the event of a serious incident which occurs when the cybersafety administrator and the principal are not available, another member of school/district administration should be informed immediately.
Additional information can be found on Georgia's NetSafe website:
http://www.gadoe.org/Technology-Services/Instructional-Technology/Pages/Cybersafety.aspx\
