Students' personal email?

[Susie Narkis]

I'm student teaching in a high school library, and we may be revising our Acceptable Use Policy in terms of email.  Does your school allow students to access personal email (ex. gmail or hotmail)? Is this always allowed or only during certain hours, like before or after school?  Any comments on your policy (what works and what doesn't) would be greatly appreciated.

[Julie Udy]

it use to be in our policy, but i don't think it is any longer. As a librarian i gave up policing the matter. I had better things to do with my time. it the district wasn't going to block it, then they need to allow access to it. It is too tough to monitor. Students also need to get into their email to get homework assignments from it, etc. I believe we have to trust the students. As long as they aren't getting out of class to get on their email... If they are in class and on their email, then it is up to the teacher to monitor this.

[Dana B]

I am a high school teacher librarian and we do allow students to access their personal email at school. I have found that most kids email their papers to themselves from home and then access it at school to print, use it for college materials, or some teachers want the students to email their papers to them. I have not seen any students doing anything they weren't supposed to while on their emails, having a personal email and using it is really something students need to get used to since as an adult they will have to use email probably on a daily basis. We don't allow Facebook, MySpace or other social networking sites, just email.

[Tiffany Whitehead]

All personal email accounts are blocked by out district filter. Neither teachers or students are allowed to access personal email from school. Teachers have a district email address, students do not. Teachers are not allowed to correspond with students through email, or via any other method that is not a "school maintained" program. Louisiana has absurdly strict internet safety laws for schools, and districts write policies that go beyond even those laws in order to "protect" themselves.