Web filtering isn't enough: the Internet ought to be kept out of schools entirely, says the father of an eight year old boy who got his Net privileges at school revoked because he opened a porn site on a school computer.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board was already feeling the heat from a mother demanding mandatory filtering for all school computers, after her eight-year-old daughter revealed she and classmates had seen a porn site in class. But David Cunill told the Ottawa Citizen that isn't enough.
"He should be disciplined," Cunill told the paper about his son, Neal, "but I think that with Web access in the classroom, you can say not to do that, but it's like leaving a porn magazine on the floor and telling everyone not to pick it up. If the access is there, kids will go for it."
School board spokeswoman Maggie Melenhorst told the Citizen restricted Net use is part of the mandated curriculum and teachers instruct students on what sites to open or avoid, saying students do not have free time to surf the Web. The board has been testing filters over the past four years, but they haven't found software that can handle heavy traffic on the school networks, the Citizen said.
