Using Your Device at Home

Taking Your Device Home

Parent Responsibilities

USD 497 needs your partnership in teaching our students to use and understand technology in a safe and effective manner.  Our ability to use technology in the home is an investment in our student’s future.  Parents and students should be aware that devices owned or configured by the school are subject to acceptable use policies even while the student is using them from home and may contain software that restricts or monitors how the machine is used. Students should have no expectation of privacy on machines owned by the school.  Below are two recommendations from the Family Online Safety Institute and ConnectSafely to help keep our student’s safe.

1.     Upstanding Netizens

A netizen is an Internet citizen who uses the Internet in responsible and socially productive ways. The values and standards that we live by in society apply also to the Internet. Similar to how things like bullying, harassment, theft, stalking and child exploitation are not acceptable offline, they’re not acceptable online either.

Sit down with your child and have the talk about what it means to be a responsible netizen and how to use the Internet ethically. Consider what it means to be respected and how to respect others. Talk about privacy, honesty, and integrity while online. By doing so, you empower your child with the tools necessary to be an upstanding digital citizen. 

2.     Online Monitoring

Make it routine to have your younger child tell you which apps they plan to use and which websites they plan to visit. For teens, the routine could include a discussion about which apps they are using and websites they visit regularly.

Help your child learn to use safe and precise search terms so they find the information they need online and are not exposed to potentially inappropriate images or websites.

Maintain reasonable time limits for device use at home. 

• Practice Netizenship With IKeepSafe’s BEaPRO™ Parent App
• Connect Safely Website 
• For more information and resources check out Common Sense Media.