By MS Principal, Tom Burgess
The Middle School has a number of expectations and guidelines for computer use both at school and off campus, including:
- No Games on School Computers….parents may at their discretion allow students to play games at home on their computer, but no games may be loaded on the hard drive of school computers.
- No Computers @ Break & Lunch….we want students to socialize face-to-face during the school day, although a student may request to work on their computer in a classroom under the supervision of a teacher.
- No Facebook for students under 13….Facebook does not permit accounts for children under 13, so we do not expect students to have a Facebook account for any school purposes. This guideline is intended to support parents who may not want their children to have a Facebook account.
- Legal Applications Only….students may load applications on their computer with permission of their parents, but ISB only allows legal applications to be placed on school computers in order to be in compliance with all international copyright laws.
In addition, we have a few important recommendations for computer use at home (you can tell your children that the Principal has advised you of these limits if they resist):
- Limit Locations….students should only use their computers in public spaces of your home, and should not use their computers behind closed doors which give them a false sense of privacy.
- Turn off at night…..adolescents need 8-9 hours of sleep each night, so the computer should be turned off at least a half-hour before bed time so that they have time to read and ‘wind down’ their brainwaves before going to sleep…..on most school nights, the computer should be turned off by 9pm or earlier.
- “Screen Time” Limits…..please sit down with your child(ren) to discuss what it means to have a ‘healthy, active, and balanced life’. Spending all day and/or night on the computer or in front of the TV is none of the above. As part of this discussion, parents and children should come to an agreement on relatively specific limits to the amount of time spent in front of a screen (computer or TV) each day after school and also on weekends.