Dear Parents,

Each year, I believe it is important to write a letter to inform parents about internet safety. It is o­nly though continued supervision and awareness that we will be able to protect our children when they are accessing the World Wide Web. Even the older children, who are very knowledgeable about technology, need our wisdom and support.

Currently, I am teaching the iSafe Curriculum to the 1^st through 8^th grades with our school counselors, Diane Downer and Patti Tomashot.By January, we will have covered the iSafe curriculum with every student in grades 1^st through 8^th. In these classes, we cover topics like community, personal information, attachments, viruses, internet predators, intellectual property, and bullying. Not all of this material is appropriate to every grade level and so the topics vary accordingly. Please ask your children to share what they are learning.

In many of the discussions with middle level students, it has become clear that our children may be accessing unsafe sites under the mistaken impression that their personal information is visible o­nly to their friends. They do not realize that their pictures, email addresses, names and other personal information are available to strangers. I would invite you all to look closely at the sites your children visit and see what children are doing o­n the web. Social sites are designed for young adults and are very attractive to 13 and 14 year old kids who want to feel older and more mature. Unfortunately, their designs lend themselves to the kind of “grooming” that internet predators typically engage in with children. People are not always who they say they are o­n the internet. A person purporting to be a 16 year old girl may, in fact, be a 50 year old man.

We strongly recommend that you do not allow your children to post their pictures to public websites. Our school website is password protected so o­nly parents, staff and students have access to program information. Please help your children protect their personal information. It is fact that with a minimal amount of such information, someone using the internet could have a map to your house in minutes. I am deeply concerned that our children are unwittingly putting themselves at risk. Although such sites are blocked here at CCS and no student is permitted to use our computers without direct adult supervision, we cannot protect our students outside of this building. We trust our students, but we don’t trust the strangers that our students might encounter o­n the internet. Most computer users are good people, but the small percentage who are predators must not have access to our families. Such predators use the internet to isolate, groom, and threaten children. Their goal is to meet the child in person. Parents, who are always there to guide and support their children, are the best protection of all.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact me by click here or calling 425-2771 ext. 155. I will be happy to provide you with additional information. In our community, we are very fortunate to have technology that provides powerful information access, but with this increased capability comes increased responsibility.

Sincerely,

Ed Bianchi