Schools short on cybersecurity training

The kids of many of our readers may well be more computer savvy than their parents. Are these kids as aware as their parents of computer risks? Probably, not, and this is why schools need to take the lead in educating kids about the dangers of the Internet, taking into account the fact that their students are growing increasingly tech-savvy every year. These are the main findings of the School Safety Index published earlier this week by CDW Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDW Corp., which sells IT products and services to schools and government agencies. CDW-G’s School Safety Index is a research project to benchmark the status of public school districts’ safety and emergency response programs. It is based on fourteen elements of physical and cybersafety — including data monitoring, security software, and safety education — and includes responses from 381 school district IT and security directors.

The School Safety Index indicates that while 95 percent of districts surveyed are blocking Web sites, 89 percent are placing computer monitors so that adults in the classroom can see them, and 81 percent are monitoring student Internet activity, only 38 percent have a closed district network that provides them with control over the content students can access and the communications they can send and receive. For those who do have a closed network, an emerging challenge for educators and IT directors is the ability of tech-savvy students to build proxy sites which get around closed networks.

Nearly every school district said is has an acceptable-use policy which defines how students are permitted to use school computers and networks. Still, 37 percent say they update these policies less than once annually, and only 8 percent of districts provide cybersafety training to students.

Yes, parents and educators should understand more how their children and students can use the Web to learn and interact with other Web users while at the same time keeping these children safe from sexual predators and pornographers. IT managers, too, have a vested interest in keeping tabs on the content their users send and receive: Only last January a jury foundformer Connecticut substitute teacher guilty of four counts of risk of injury to a minor after her classroom computer in October 2004 started displaying pornographic pop-up advertisements.