Dear Glencoe High School Technology Department,

We the students and parents of Glencoe would like to show you as to why we believe web pages should not be restricted anywhere else other than school. We completely agree that websites that can be distracting should be blocked at school. This will cause more productivity in the classroom and an overall safer environment. Even though we agree with this, we do not support blocked web pages while at home or in other environments than school. We believe that the restrictions should be lifted and we should be given the freedom to express ourselves on the internet. We have several reasons as to why we believe in this cause, and we would appreciate it if you could take the time to understand why this would be good for the students and parents of Glencoe.

Our first point is that parents should have the right to choose what to restrict at home. We believe that parents generally know what is best for their child to succeed, and if they believe restricting certain web pages is necessary for their safety, then it is completely understandable. We ask that you give the parents the freedom to decide what is blocked on their child’s Chromebook. You could provide information to the parents on how to go about setting up parental controls on their internet at home to determine what they should block and what they should not. This would make every parent happy, as they would be able to individually determine what their child can and cannot access.

By not blocking certain websites such as social media, Netflix, and gaming websites, you give the students the option to cool down and relax after school. Many of the students believe that the only way of expressing themselves is by going on these social media websites. Netflix allows many people to calm down and relax. According to one individual, by not having Netflix unblocked and having no other way to access it, this person went down significantly in sleep by not being able to calm down and relax enough. Gaming websites are also a very important aspect as many people need to go on these in order to calm down after a stressful day. Without these ways to handle stress, many students are performing worse in school than they have before.

Many of us are upset by the fact that the restrictions have changed on the internet. For instance, only a couple of years ago almost every website was accessible, allowing many students to explore the internet and find what interests them. Many people have gotten into the routine of going on these websites to chat and meet with other people to allow themselves to mellow down. This changed when one day we found that these websites were being blocked not only at school but at home as well. Many of us were upset as this completely threw off our routine of the night. Several people don’t own any other electronics, causing them to become completely blocked off. If the restrictions were set from the beginning this might have been taken better, but they were not and therefore we created our petition.

We would like to formally request that you remove all restrictions on the internet other than at school. We do suggest you continue to block pornography and other obscene websites as this is your job; however, we do not suggest you block anything else. This will allow many students to relieve their stress and express themselves. We also suggest that you send information home to parents explaining to them how they are able to block certain websites from their home internet. We believe that this should be our own decision as we are the primary users of the Chromebooks, and it is our own homes. This issue is very important to all of us, as many of us have not been able to function as well since this has happened. We formally ask you to remove the restrictions that you have set on our Chromebooks and have it only in effect at school. At the beginning of school for many of us, we were promised that we would have the freedom to explore and express our thoughts through our Chromebooks and classwork. Are you going to go back on your promise now?

Sincerely,

The Students and Parents of Glencoe High