•The number of Internet-capable computers soared 39% — from about 137,000 in 2002 to nearly 190,000 in 2006. Libraries in rural states in New England and the Midwest led the country in public computers per capita in 2006.
The increase in Internet access is thanks in part to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which launched a national program in 1997 to bring the Internet to libraries, beginning with the South.
By 2003, the foundation had spent $250 million on some 47,000 computers, as well as training and tech support, bringing almost every public library online, said Jill Nishi, deputy director of the foundation's U.S. Libraries initiative.
"You should be able to walk into any library and find Internet service," she said. "It's free, unfettered access to information."
This bill would specify that bullying, as used in these provisions,means one or more acts by a pupil or a group of pupils directed against another pupil that constitutes sexual harassment, hate violence, or severe or pervasive intentional harassment, threats, or intimidation that is disruptive, causes disorder, and invades the rights of others by creating an intimidating or hostile educational environment, and includes\nacts that are committed personally or by means of an electronic act, as defined.
Existing law prohibits the suspension, or recommendation for expulsion, of a pupil from school unless the principal determines that the pupil has committed any of various specified acts, including, but not limited to, hazing, as defined. This bill, in addition, would give school officials grounds to suspend a pupil or recommend a pupil for expulsion for bullying, including, but not limited to, bullying by electronic act.