Seahawk Parent Roundtable- October 14th

[Jdarg]

The October Seahawk Parent Roundtable will meet in South Walton High School's media center at 5:30. Our featured topic this month will be the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, which are used by so many of our students in middle and high school, and how, as parents, we can make sure our kids are safely and apporpriately participating in these sites.

Chuck McMullen, from the Florida Attorney General's office, will be presenting a short program that the state uses to educates kids and parents about the nuts and bolts of the social networking sites . MySpace and Facebook are extremely popular, and it is important for parents to be educated on the content and possibilities for misuse.

Our kids' uses and misuses of MySpace/Facebook can have wide reaching consequences from giving access to sexual predators and affecting future employment to local cyberbulling and sexual content. If you would like to learn how to help your child participate safely and appropriately, please attend this meeting. Parents of middle schoolers are welcome to attend too- many kids are getting their MySpace accounts in middle school.

Please PM me if you have any questions!

 

[Kurt]

No offspring allowed? I bet a round table with parents, teachers, and students involved would be highly entertaining, revealing, and educational for all.

 

[Jdarg]

No offspring allowed? I bet a round table with parents, teachers, and students involved would be highly entertaining, revealing, and educational for all.

Of course the kids are welcome- but we are not going for a big "reveal" scenario. For anyone that has seen MySpace, I think it can be agreed that it's use by kids needs to have some parental oversight.

The high school kids did have a program last spring. In typical high school fashion, I doubt they shared much of the info with their parents. What happens during the day goes into that big black hole of the teenage brain, and unless a parent actively attempts to draw it out, there the info will stay.;-)

 

[wrobert]

Jdarg,

I may need to start another thread on this but at the last school board meeting they discussed a state mandate to adopt a policy on bullying to conform with some new laws that were passed.

One of the issues that did come up was that it would be considered bullying if a group of students were to exclude another student from associating with them. The example Mark used was if four kids were having lunch together and a fifth was not allowed to join, that would make those four, bullys subject to whatever punishment is ultimately decided for the offense.

I would be very interested in your thoughts on this and feel that this is something that all parents are going to have to make sure that they voice any concerns that they may have when the public hearings on this new rule are held.

 

[Jdarg]

Robert, yes please start another thread. What you have posted is interesting and merits discussion, but it is a totally different subject than social networking websites and cyberbullying, which is the focus of this meeting.

 

[mdd88jd]

Actually cyberbulling was included in the proposed policy. The State of Florida requires the board to pass this policy and the State prepared a "model policy" for the boards to pass. The "model policy" included the definition that Robert discussed, i.e., social exclusion as prohibited "bullying." I am trying to get the district to post the proposed policy on the website for review before the public hearing. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

 

[doxiegirl]

In my day they called that a clique (sp).

 

[ShallowsNole]

Cyberbullying is here, and it is real. The specific incident that I am aware of involved several seventh-grade girls at ECMS.

Also, many folks think of sexual predators as older men getting caught on Dateline. There is a lot of that to be sure, but what is disheartening to me is young ladies - local girls - engaging in sexual fantasy storytelling on MySpace with local young men. And of course, vice versa. Put them in a room face-to-face and they won't speak to each other. Put them on the computer and you could make a fortune selling Harlequin romance novels.

*sigh*

 

[Jdarg]

Bump!

Hope to see some local parents at the meeting tomorrow night. I know it is a busy week (and believe me, I really know!), but we would like to see some good attendance numbers tomorrow night. Please pass the word to parents of local middle and high schoolers - our children have very active lives online and it is our responsibility to know how to keep them safe and educated.

 

[Alicia Leonard]

Bump!

Hope to see some local parents at the meeting tomorrow night. I know it is a busy week (and believe me, I really know!), but we would like to see some good attendance numbers tomorrow night. Please pass the word to parents of local middle and high schoolers - our children have very active lives online and it is our responsibility to know how to keep them safe and educated.

We have a reporter that will attend this as well.