Recently, it has come to my attention that the Eden Prairie School System, or at least the laptops at the High School, have a new web filtering system. I would like to stress that by law (Children's Internet Protection Act), public facilities using E-Rate Internet funding must address things like "access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet" and "measures restricting minors' access to materials harmful to them". However, the school district has become notorious among students for using a system that restricts much more than it needs to, and this often even hinders legitimate school work, and even more so with this new system. 

The school, the district, and the technology department have no obligation to block anything not harmful to minors, or damaging to our safety or security. Furthermore, the FCC is very, very, VERY lax when enforcing this law, including accepting school districts that only use DNS filtering methods into the E-Rate funding system, and never requires the monitoring of Internet use by minors or adults. Suffice it to say, the school has no requirement or need of going as far as they have.

The notion of protecting our safety and security is a noble one, and is appreciated by all. However the school(s) has/have gone leaps and bounds above what they needed to do, and they seem to be constantly finding new ways to restrict and censor Internet use, fight anonymity, and restrict as much as they can, including using an automated filtering system that's so bad it has restricted access to the following and many, many more:

Edenpr.org: Eden Prairie Schools' own website.

The Tor Network: A network with the express purpose of providing anonymity to its users. Anonymity is vital to our success as students in the 21st century, and privacy isn't something that should be restricted any more than absolutely necessary.

Google services: Many of my classmates with the new restrictions have reported having trouble accessing sites such as Google Translate, and even Google Search, which are so vital to research and learning they don't even need explanation. 

Update: The school has sent out another email trying to justify their actions, but Gmail is blocked, so we have no way of reading it, or at least not in school on our MacBooks.

The last grievance I hear from classmates with this system is how we are told to try to get sites unblocked. Under the current (and previous) system, students are expected to take the time out of their day to fill out a long document explaining why a website has educational value our merit. It is so incompetent that even after a site has been unblocked, following a student taking the time to full out the form and upon review the site being unblocked, that same site is often blocked again. Students should not have to take portions of their day to mitigate the conquenses of the bad system, especially when the thing that they are trying to prove is that a thing had educational value.

These issues are not even including the ones that parents are concerned about, which are that the money the school takes in from taxes to pay for these web blocking services isn't going towards improvements in the future success that students will have, and that economically disadvantages students who can't afford their own devices or Internet connection are effectively being restricted from having any access to the sites of employers and other important personal websites, leading to a widening of the achievement gap.

It's time for a change. We have dealt with the consequences of the decisions our school systems make for long enough, and we demand a better system of Internet use that has better respect for our education and privacy, doesn't disadvantage poor students, and doesn't cost us more tax money than what is truly necessary and helpful.

In conclusion, Eden Prairie Schools, including the high school and their technology department, need to be a leader in providing educational opportunities to their students. We need them to spend tax money responsibly, so that every dollar we give them is put to good use, and we need them to let us pay no more than is beneficial to students. When the downsides of doing so are negligible, we need them to provide their students with reasonable access to anonymity and privacy, and we need them to take action to close the gap in the kind of education poor and rich students get, not widen it. We need a school district we can be truly proud of.

 

Signing off,

Aidan Lindon,

Sophomore at Eden Prairie High School.