Protecting students from exposure to harmful online content

Over the past two years, school districts have sent kids home with laptops and tablets in unprecedented numbers. Thousands of these devices and the internet connections that power them have been purchased through two federal subsidy programs overseen by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) known as E-Rate and the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF).  Giving students these devices has led to a dramatic increase in screen time and made it more difficult for parents to protect their children from exposure to objectively harmful online content. On the issues of online privacy and data security, we are charting new territory with legislation now pending in Congress; but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of tech usage by minors, we began laying a protective legal foundation decades ago, starting with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The law requires school districts that take advantage of E-Rate or ECF dollars to follow internet safety policies and implement technology protection measures that block students from accessing pornography and other types of obscene material on school-issued devices. We sent a letter to the organization the FCC uses to administer the E-Rate and ECF programs to ensure that every covered device that a school district puts in a student’s hand is CIPA compliant. But it’s important to remember that policymakers and educators can only do so much, as the responsibility relies on our children's caretakers to influence their online presence.