Dar I'm not really even speaking of you anymore, it's all the people who responded to you instead of with a simple yes or no they had to call for blood. These people hate teachers and anything to do with education. I would love to put some parents in their place; there are a lot more people that should not have custody of their own children than there are bad teachers. I'm proud of the way you stood up for yourself and got it taken care of, but I'm disgusted with the "kill the teacher" mentality of some of these people. Will I get slapped for this? Yes, I will, and that is fine with me. But I am going to defend myself and my profession because no one else will do it, because this board is mainly anti-education, and it wasn't like this in the past. As for using the Internet is schools, we do our best to maintain safety on all parts, but whether some people like it or not, technology and that includes the Internet is the future of this country. Most districts have online services they use such as Learning.com, Fasttmath, Coolmathgames, and many other sites. A lot of our testing is done online now and that means names, and other information are online too. Can the general public just wander into the site and start shopping for a child to abuse?No, and the predators who do look for online victims generally shop in public areas such as chatrooms, social networking sites, etc. It is too easy to trace anyone on an educational website to the safety parameters that are in place to protect your children and us too. The El Paso Independent School District was hacked last year, the got a lot of personal information on the staff but were not able to access most information concerning students or parents because that has a higher degree of protection.
Those people calling for a teacher to be sued or fired, or put in jail, because they make use of an educational website need to crawl out of their hole and admit that their children probably post a lot more than their parents think online all by themselves without the aid of a teacher.
We have MAPs tests here, every student takes the math, reading, and language arts sections, they are online, the reports are online, the results are delivered online. If a parent doesn't want their student take these tests they need to move to a school district that is still in the dark ages, because they are required tests and they will be taken. If you don't trust the schools safety then pay for the program yourself and do it from home. The days of all work being done by paper and pencil are long gone, unfortunately the "Sue ask no questions" idea is now the norm among the population. With all the lawyers on tv with ads screaming Call Me!! I'll put a million dollars in your pocket too!, that is the first thing people think of. Teachers and educators are prime targets because we work with children, and nothing gets a mob up faster than for someone to scream Bad Teacher!! The news stations jump it and run with it. When the teacher is found innocent do they go back and print and publish a retraction and say Oops,, my bad, we were wrong? No, they don't, they go on to the next story not caring how many lives they just destroyed. I can't even give a crying child a hug because you are the people who will scream I was touching them inappropriately. Sad thing this world has come to.
