A majority of states now support permanent online schooling. Covid-19 accelerated children onto the Internet on laptops causing issues for school districts and parents.
Parents need to be sure their children can log onto the secure portal and
operate all features necessary for school. Ask for help if you need it.
Portals
are password-protected, but you need to ask who can message, video chat, etc.
with your child within the portal. Children operating within the portal should
be secure.
But
that same laptop connects to the whole Internet, and your child may not be
prepared to handle all the pedophiles and traffickers that lurk there.
Freedom13 recommends using parental control apps to monitor and even block
access to sites too advanced for your child. A subscription to Bark or another
highly rated app is well worth it for your child’s safety. See our book on
Internet safety in the Resources for a complete rundown on social media
and what to do.
We repeatedly found students want to chat with friends between classes within the safety of the classroom. Instead, districts restrict this and point children to texting and social media where they are at risk. We see an excellent opportunity for Virtual Schools to encourage social interaction, messaging, and one-on-one video chats within the portal's safety.
Lastly,
we found districts not using apps like Bark or Babble to monitor interactions
between students. These apps watch for signs, especially chat slang, suggesting
suicidal, gun violence, gang, or trafficking issues. Bark for Schools is free and does this monitoring on commonly used portal software.
See our book on Internet safety in Resources for more that schools can do to help.
Freedom13
would be glad to have virtual conferences to review these and other things to
keep our children safe. We cover Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, ways to
identify DMST victims instead of classifying them as juvenile delinquents, and
free curriculum on Internet safety.
See EVENTS
to schedule a presentation.
