Who's Watching You?
Information students see as private may not be as secure as they think.

Hays High Guidon - January 28, 2007

by MICHAEL RAVEN

All high school students value their privacy, and some at Hays High believe theirs is being violated on a day-to-day basis as a result of random laptop checks made by the administration.
According to Principal Michael Hester, any student’s laptop is able to be checked at anytime, as long as it’s turned on in the Hays High building.

The software being used, much like last year’s Vision, is School Vue. Hester said School Vue is not only for monitoring purposes, but also allows teachers to push websites and other educational tools to their classes. Currently, only the office has access to School Vue.
“Teachers have not been able to have School Vue to monitor their classrooms due to problems with Vista,” Hester said. “We are working with our techies and hope to allow teachers to launch the system this month.”

Students caught with internet violations will suffer a variety of consequences, which increase in severity as the instances of violations increase. Accessing websites deemed inappropriate will first result in detentions, then after more offenses, result in ISS and two weeks without a computer, and finally loss of computer for the entire year.

Though it may have educational as well as supervisory benefits, many students are upset with the lack of personal privacy.

“I don’t support laptop searches, even if it’s school property. What happens on it is still our own business,” junior Nick Renard said.

Both random and targeted searches are conducted, each with their own reasoning behind them.
“We do random searches, but also target individuals or groups of individuals after receiving information from teachers, parents or other students,” Hester said. “The students who abuse regularly, the ‘frequent flyers,’ are checked out often.”

Targeted checks particularly anger students; they believe that they are being discriminated against.

“I think it’s ridiculous that kids are targeted because of their prior behavior,” sophomore Dexter Urban said. “Other kids are just as likely to do something just as bad.”

Though some students may not approve, the administration officials have reasoning for both random and targeted checks.

“Severity, frequency and what’s best for the education process is what we consider during our investigations,” Hester said.

Students may never come to accept the lack of privacy, but the administration insists that it’s for students’ benefit in the end.

“Using technology appropriately is a responsibility that we’re teaching young people,” Hester said. “We want them to act ethically and responsibly with computers in the future.”