trenton.k12.nj.us). The Board of Education "…shall ensure the acquisition and installation of blocking/filtering software" (www.trenton.k12.nj.us).
(d) Determine if a formal investigation is warranted or not. At this point, there does not seem to be justification for a formal investigation. This is a problem that should be reviewed and solved in house. Launching a formal investigation gets the media into the picture and stirs rumors that can be damaging to the school's reputation.
(e) What steps (by a timeline) should be taken in order to investigate the allegations? First, the principal needs to learn if filtering software was in that computer. Second, assuming the principal has cleared his efforts with legal counsel, the department chair, Ms. Paulson, the principal, his assistants and a representative from the superintendent's office should meet within 2 days of the allegations. Third, the day after the above-mentioned meeting, several students from that class should be interviewed informally by the counselor (less threatening than the principal) to learn if others saw the pornography that day.
(f) The investigative plan: one) how will the students and staff be chosen? Two counselors (in coordination with Ms. Paulson) will be asked to suggest trustworthy students from that class to be interviewed about what they saw that day. A faculty member with significant technology experience will be called in to determine exactly how inappropriate images were projected on the screen; he or she will go into the computer's hard drive to locate the source of the incident. Two) Conduct these interviews. Ms. Paulson is interviewed by the district's IT person to determine how much she actually knows about the equipment she is responsible for. "Her knowledge of digital technologies is very limited," according to the IT person. "She needs training before she starts another semester; in the meantime a tech-savvy aide should be assigned to her classroom." She is also interviewed by a district supervisor who determines she...
Two counselors interviewed Ms. Paulson's students and all four say they saw a "nude woman doing something naughty" on the screen, "but only for a few seconds."
(g) How will the principal maintain confidentiality in this matter? This will not be easy because once students know something untoward has happened in a classroom on campus, the "grapevine" in middle schools gets the information out, fast. However, the allegations can and should remain confidential, and the decision to not sanction Ms. Paulson (but instead provide her with the training she desperately needs) can be kept confidential.
(h) How will this be communicated to the media and the community, if necessary? There need be no communication of this matter to the media. There was no inappropriate teacher behavior (just negligence in not having good classroom control) and this is not what the media would call a "scandal" at all. What it turned out to be -- and this can be reported to the Board of Education -- is that he is a new principal who has not fully grasped the various duties and responsibilities of his school, including bringing teachers in for conferences when their class is not in control.
Conclusion
The problems that potentially can occur when children are using technology should be known and expressed to all teachers with Internet access. State and federal laws -- and school board guidelines -- all make clear that computers on campus should have filtering software so no students could access inappropriate sites to begin with.
Works Cited
State of New Jersey. (2004). Safe and Ethical Use of Computers / Internet Protection Act.
Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.state.nj.us.
Trenton Board of Education. (2007). Technology / Acceptable Use of the Internet. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.trenton.k12.nj.us.
