Two American Fork fifth-graders could face criminal charges for looking at pornography on a school computer, but some people are wondering how they were able to access the images in the first place.
Police were called last week after two 11-year-old boys at Forbes Elementary School pulled up images of sexual acts on a school computer and then showed the pictures to nine other students, said American Fork Police Sgt. Gregg Ludlow. The incident came to light when one child told a parent and another told the principal.
Ludlow called the images “pretty explicit” but declined to elaborate. He said the boys made multiple attempts on different days to access inappropriate material. Ultimately, they typed the word “lesbian” into a search engine and were able to pull up pictures not blocked by the school’s Internet filter.
The school suspended the boys for two days. They could face charges in juvenile court of dealing in material harmful to a minor or lesser charges for viewing pornography at school, or be referred to the probation department instead of going to court, among other possibilities, said Chris Yannelli, deputy Utah County Attorney. If they are adjudicated in juvenile court, consequences range from community service to serving time in a juvenile detention facility, he said.
Those kids are Forked…
“If we can get them into the juvenile justice system and make sure they’re getting some counseling or other services, that’s our end goal.”
Oh great, give these kids a complex about sex. Just what we need.
Counseling?! How about, “it’s ok to be curious about this, but it’s not appropriate for school” and be done with it?
Furthermore, I hate this bureau-speak: “our end goal.”
Doesn’t ‘goal’ imply ‘end’?
Wasn’t Sarbanes-Oxley implemented to stop this type of behavior?
Suspending the boys for two days was appropriate. Getting the courts involved is not.
#5 Benjamin
Agreed
To take this further would be idiotic but that hasn’t stopped any of the other ‘tards from doing the same thing.
(No offense to real ‘tards by associating them with this group intended.)
f’n ridiculous.
-figures it’s in sexually repressed Utah.
“Rhonda Bromley, Alpine School District spokeswoman, said district officials decided to involve police based on the seriousness of the case”
i wonder they’ll do to the kids if they
ask a teacher what a lesbian is?
-aha..i found the source of the problem..
the school is a christian fundamentalist nutball haven.
“Utah meeting planned by anti-gay PTSA leader canceled” http://tinyurl.com/nutballs
-no hope for those children.
the people making these rules should
stuffed in a rocket and sent into the sun.
-s
(they still havent figured that this type of
repressed behavour/teaching only serves to produce adults that are hard core sexaholics)
Quick someone call the police, we have young boys here trying to see pictures of naked women! This is an outrage, it’s unnatural I tell you! These two young perverts should be committed for life!
“…but, but, we have filters for this!”
(part of a hypothetical (but likely) discussion between IT staff and principal at The Fork)
Yeah, well, get some clue, too.
Around forth or fifth grade is when I saw my first playboy. I bet it’s the same for most people. It’s not really about the nudity even, it’s mostly about seeing something people say your to young to see.
#6 Surprisingly we agree.
Still, I’d like to read what the other religious wing nuts have to say about this to determine how to collectively rank you on the loony scale.
It’s purely research and names are removed to preserve anonymity.
Our tax $ at work. No wonder schools no longer educate, they are run by morons.
I think this says it all “Utah County”.
hmmm…I wish we had pc’s back then…we had to sneak into stores and glimpse at the “magazines” or “borrow” them from somebody.
It is normal curiousity. We would still be in caves (or are we still?) if nobody would have been curious. Would we have reproduced?
Why don’t these morons get a grip and see it as something perfectly normal. A slap (oh, that is against the law too) on the wrist and be done with it. Man, am I glad I still remember how I was when I was a little girl… 😉
Really, juvie charges for showing carpet munchers to their friends? Society will die in 20 years. It’s gonna look like “running man” in the 2040’s and Arnold will be too old to don the spandex suit to save us.
If there is a GAWD, please let this case be laughed out of court and have the lawyers stripped of their powers and the school sued for wasting the court’s time.
I’m taking educational media courses and learning what a huge problem this is for schools.
Especially high schools — if the schools filter too much, they are accused of censorship. If they don’t block, they are accused of spreading pornography.
Solutions, anyone?
In one school I observed, the solution is low-tech — they put the monitors in a very public place so that librarian can see what the kids are doing.
But, you do the math — twenty terminals (even more kids) and one librarian running the library as well as monitoring the kids.
But what to do?
Agree this is a waste of time and no big deal. I’m guessing the principal contacted the school’s attorney who gave the advice to call outsiders. However, the school probably cannot go very far with the legal route. It seems simple for any competent defense lawyer to turn the tables and ask why such explicit material was available to students in the classroom.
12 years ago my kid was sitting next to an eventual psychopath in 2nd grade when the psycho typed playboy.com into the browser. Called in to see the principal, I asked “why are there no filters?” Immediately, the issue ended as far as we were concerned. I never heard about it again.
# 16 Greg Allen said, “if the schools filter too much, they are accused of censorship. If they don’t block, they are accused of spreading pornography. Solutions, anyone?”
Sure, in H.S. if someone screams “censorship” tell them to STFU. If a kid is caught accessing porn at school kick them off the computers for the rest of the year and give them a week of detention scrubbing the floors.
In other words, get a backbone
Greg…there are no great technical solutions. A couple surveillance cameras pointed at the screens will let the students know they’re being watched and recorded at all times. Whether or not you actually record anything is a different story, but they don’t need to know that.
Also, they need to know that you know who is logged in and when, and that the browser history is easily reviewed by time. A physical example of such an investigation makes the point.
Some kids are like dogs…they behave perfectly if they know you’re there. But if left alone, they know nobody will stop them and will do whatever they want. Because they can.
Paddy, all schools have AUPs, acceptable use policies. Usually both the kids and parents must sign them, and consequences of violations are covered. Fortunately, most schools don’t have zero tolerance on these because innocuous searches DO turn up unexpected results.
…you simply cannot censor everything that needs censored in the HS setting. The question is not about drawing a line, but rather where to put it.
Isn’t it filtered? OK, we’ll block google images. But, but, we need that! OK, we’ll unblock google images. You can’t have it both ways.
/works at a school board
//in the IT department
///had this conversation
# 20 Olo Baggins of Bywater said, “Fortunately, most schools don’t have zero tolerance on these because innocuous searches DO turn up unexpected results. ”
Going to a mistaken search result is one thing, sitting and searching FOR and viewing it are two different things… In the latter case, floor scrubbing and booting off the system would handle it nicely.
#11 Dallas said,
#6 Surprisingly we agree.
And it’s a damn good thing I was sitting down when I read your response…..
This is ridiculous. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s the fault of the school, not the fault of the boys. And there is nothing wrong with those boys that indicates a need for counseling. Kids spread rumors about sex around that age and share copies of Playboy; why wouldn’t they want to show other kids porn they found?
I think it’s about time that sex ed included what to do if you stumble across porn online.
Paddy,
Spoken like a typical right winger who has the most shallow grasp of the issue.
(sorry for being harsh, but that’s how you come across.)
It’s not an issue of “get a backbone”. That’s just silly jargon.
It’s a complex dilemma of the wired electronic information age that can’t be glibly dismissed.
In the past, librarians could vet the information in their libraries, both for age-appropriateness and credibility. One librarian could supervise a hundred kids because they didn’t need to worry about any kid seeing any of the material.
But now libraries have a “pipe” of totally un-vetted information coming into the library. And they don’t have the increased staff to watch them. Often they have LESS staff than previous years. (thank you anti-tax conservatives!)
Yet, the librarian is still accountable for the student’s experience in the library.
Making kids scrub floors doesn’t even remotely come close to fixing that dilemma.
Greg
(… and don’t call this a lefty issue. The Right Wing Christian parents will be the first to sue if their Johnny is exposed to lesbian sex in the library and then forced into child labor for doing so.)
Olo Baggins,
THANK YOU for taking this issue seriously.
I am going to face it professionally, soon, and I’m vexed by it.
Cameras would probably reduce porn use but recently parents at my daughters school WENT BALLISTIC when a legitimate staff person videoed their kids for something. He was forced to write a letter of apology to the whole school! It might be legal, though some usage agreement, but it might cause endless hassling. I don’t know.
For sure, terminals in a high traffic area help with browsing of porn — both only if there is a staff person to watch the kids. (the kids don’t turn each other in.)
BUT anti-tax conservatives will FIGHT LIKE HELL to block any solution that costs money.
# 25 Greg Allen said, “Spoken like a typical right winger who has the most shallow grasp of the issue. ”
LOL! I’ve forgotten more about “filtering” tech & and its related issues than you will ever know.
Please tell me why my solution won’t work…
There was a similar case at my son’s school here in the UK – 2 boys working their way around the school’s ‘net filters to try and get a glimpse at something slightly more compelling than yet another oxbow lake!
They eventually succeeded and got themselves caught in the act (or, more accurately, looking at other people ‘in the act’!)
The major difference in this case was that the parents successfully sued the school to firce the Local education Authority to implement better controls. The Judge admonished the school for “failing to exercise the appropriate duty of care” over the two boys.
isn’t that natural? what is the big deal?
Why everyone is against porn nowadays?, who hates it?
no one gets enough sex,
Its when they ARENT INTERESTED, in the idea of SEX, or Exploring interesting things, that we have to worry.
And I would be interested HOW they could spell or FOUND the word lesbian..
If they took the time to discover this word and others, THINK of the intelligence they must have, and HOW can you redirect it to make them SMARTER..
#29
the big deal is the THOUGHT that kids CAN NOT be kids.. and SEX is something you dont even THINK about until you are 20 years old..LMAO..