Other districts take
a different policy stand. While they also use blocking and filtering
that federal law requires, their policy is based on the premise that
children need to learn how to be responsible users and that such cannot
occur if the young person has no real choice. School personnel who take
this stand contend that students need to acquire the skills and
dispositions of responsible Internet usage and to be held accountable
for their behavior. Moreover, those holding this position contend that
restrictive school networks may provide more of an appearance of
protection than reality since they can be bypassed by students. Schools
with less restrictive environments often distinguish between the
restrictiveness appropriate for older and younger students since young
children may stumble across sites they ought not visit.
