Rockcastle schools move against internet smut
School system is the first in its region to buck complacency
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, Sept, 1997

The people of Mt. Vernon, like citizens across the state, hold strong opinions. Yet they do not refute reality when a rational argument points out an error in their thinking.

On April 30, Larry Hammond, Superintendent of Rockcastle County Schools, wrote a letter to school board members recommending that the system follow the advice of the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and not seek to filter students’ access to the Internet. The department recommends that schools not rely on filtering programs since, among other reasons, they don’t block out all obscene material.

“I know we could select a blocker (filter program) which would not be cost prohibitive, but I do not think the expenditure would be warranted in the absence of a problem,” wrote Hammond.

Enter board member Teressa Boling. Boling’s husband, Jeff, provides Internet access and security for a Central Kentucky corporation, so she was well aware of the potential dangers lurking in cyberspace.

Every school district in the state has access to the Internet, but very few have any safeguards to prevent access to objectionable sites.  For example, none of the 26 districts in Rockcastle County’s region (Region 5) had any form of filtering last spring.

Two days after Hammond’s letter, Boling wrote a letter to the editor of the Mt. Vernon Signal to inform the public of the issue.  She carefully explained the problem and urged citizens to make their wishes known.

At the same time, she wrote to county school officials making her case to them and challenging the conventional wisdom of the KDE. Taking a non-accusatory tone point by point, she gave cogent reasons to show why some Internet sites need filtering.

Boling and others in the community contended that, while no solution is perfect, filtering out most of the material would be worth the district’s expense.

As a result of her exhortation, over 35 citizens attended the May 13th meeting of the school board to share their concerns. And the school board listened attentively.

Hal Hunt, a dairy farmer and lifelong resident, was one of the citizens who answered Boling’s call.  “I was concerned about children’s access to pornography on the Internet even before it was brought up. It’s a moral issue and we need to make a statement.” He added, “Computers are great, and the Internet contains an abundance of information, but I feel we need to spend some time and money to protect our children.”

A high school student testified to the board that classmates had purposefully accessed on-line pornography at school.

On behalf of the children. “Looking back, it’s clear that they were convinced that this would be a definite help,” Boling said. The board designated the district’s Technical Director, Kelly Pensol, to investigate the options available and report back to them.

By the June 10 meeting, Pensol had registered for a conference on Internet technologies which offered one alternative to the problem. The board agreed to postpone further discussion until after the conference but approved a special meeting afterward to hear the director’s report and vote on a proposal that could be in place by the first day of school.

After she returned from the conference, Pensol recommended that the system purchase CyberPatrol software for each computer with access to the Internet, approximately 300 computers in five schools.

Initially reluctant to resort to software, she said, “The key is that we supervise, and we teach our kids that they are responsible, too... If this helps, then that’s fine.”

As a result, the school board voted unanimously on July 22 to purchase the software to block out obscene material. Boling said “The school board was concerned that we not completely rely on these filtering programs.”  They urged that teachers still actively monitor student Internet use.

For Hunt the issue was not whether 100% of the objectionable material would be blocked.  “It’s there, and it’s wrong, and we need to send a message and do something about it.” He felt that complacency on the part of adults would lead to open acceptance of pornography by the next generation.

Implementation of the system is currently on hold while Pensol completes maternity leave, but she hopes that it will be in place within a month.

Each school district currently makes its own decision regarding whether to filter Internet access.  Some districts, like Jefferson County, filter at the district level.  This means that all of a district’s Internet connections are filtered centrally.  Rockcastle county’s software will block objectionable sites at each computer workstation.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst