·
If you know a family with students
entering kindergarten next year, let them know that the annual Kindergarten Roundup takes place
Wednesday and Thursday this week (March 1 and 2) All
the details are on the web.
·
Two seminars for
kindergarten parents – one in April and another in May – give
parents an opportunity to ask other parents and school staff what
this magical year of kindergarten is
all about and how to be a successful new elementary school student or
parent. The forums are interactive and for adults
only.
1.
Tuesday, April 25 at Endeavour
Elementary,
2.
Monday, May 1 at Maple
Hills Elementary,
More
information is available from Cathy Moore at
391-6087.
·
·
On line safety
is a
district focus. Google’s recent decision to merge e-mail and Chat services
has caused the district to shut down GMail account access as of Monday, February
27. In a message sent to all staff on February 14, Executive Director of
Educational Technology Colleen Dixon explained:
Google’s
Gmail is now offering a combined web-based e-mail and chat service. This a
problem for the district because the District’s Internet Content Advisory
Committee included ‘Chat’ as a category of Internet content to block because
‘Chat’ lacks academic and research benefit.
Here’s
why it is a problem:
·
Among the categories
·
Gmail’s decision to blend chat together
with e-mail makes it impossible with current technology to block just one aspect
of the service. So at this time, the District must block both Gmail services to
meet the requirement to block ‘Chat’. When the filter’s software is
sophisticated enough to differentiate between chat and e-mail, we will be able
to reopen Gmail’s e-mail.
Students
or staff using Gmail for their research or schoolwork may want to sign up with
another web-based e-mail service and retain their Gmail service for home
use.
As of
Monday, February 27, Gmail users will no longer be able to access their
e-mail through the District network. You can still send to Gmail accounts
from your wednet e-mail address and get Gmail sent to your wednet e-mail
address, but Gmail users won’t be able to use the District network or VPN to
open Gmail mailboxes to read e-mails sent to their Gmail addresses. They will
need to access wednet e-mail accounts through other Internet
access.
For
those of you who want more background, here’s some history and rationale for
filtering Internet content and ‘chat’ access.
·
The Children’s Internet Protection Act
of December, 2000 requires public schools to block pornographic sites.
·
The District Internet Content Advisory
Committee sets additional standards to protect students’ safety and to ensure
that school technology resources are used only for academic and research
purposes.
·
The proliferation of chat, instant
messaging, Personals sites (such as myspace.com), etc. have been a worry for
parents and a distraction for school staff responsible for monitoring computer
use. Parents, staff, and even law enforcement agencies recognize the
danger of students having unlimited and unsupervised access to the Internet and
services available on the Internet.
·
Our Internet filter is intended to
protect students. Sometimes these protections involve inconveniences for all of
us.
A recent
KOMO Television news story
emphasizes the importance of on line and Chat safety measures for
students.
Please do not
reply to this E-News message as it comes from an unattended email address used
to distribute information to the community. To contact someone about topics in
E-News, please call (425) 837-7000. Thank
you.
To join or
unsubscribe from this list, go to www.issaquah.wednet.edu/list.
Please share this
information and E-News subscription link with others who might want regular
District updates and messages.