YouTube ban lift proposed at meeting

Written by Keerthika Ramakrishnan

Teachers want to lift the ban on YouTube to have access to the educational videos. The debate over YouTube has been considered for a while, but only during the Sept. 30 board of education meeting, the issue was addressed.

Our school’s Internet is funded by E-rate, and this program tells the district which websites need to be blocked at school. In order to get the E-rate funding, our school needs to abide by the laws of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). CIPA requires Internet access to be filtered of images that express pornography, obscenity or any other pictures that might be harmful to minors. In addition, CIPA mandates the blocking of chat rooms and other social networks like MySpace to keep minors in a safe place. Since YouTube has some inappropriate videos, E-rate requires the website to be blocked.

Teachers argue that they want Internet access to show educational videos to students that better learn through visuals. Sites like Teacher tube and School Tube do not offer the types of videos the teachers are keen on showing.

“There is no way to be sure that unlimited access to YouTube won’t be abused by kids, but I do think that teachers should be able to access YouTube,” English and social justice teacher Stewart Perlman said.

Teachers agree that there are some inappropriate videos, but they would like YouTube to be unblocked only for teachers with password protections. However, some  argue that even with password protection, certain teachers might let a student use their computer where YouTube might be accessed.

At the board meeting, the board members agreed YouTube is a good source for teachers to use in class. The vendor that FUSD uses to filter the Internet does not have the technological ability to give password protected access to YouTube, but the vendors are working with this idea. The idea of changing the vendor crossed the board members’ minds, but money was the main concern. Changing vendors would cost more money for the district and budget cuts constrain the spending of the district. The board’s decision is pending until the next board meeting to see whether the Internet vendor can create password protected filters for teachers to access YouTube.  By the first week of November, the board of education will announce whether teachers will be able to access YouTube.