Here's how to avoid compu-termination...

NEA Today, Sep 1999

BASICS FOR BEGINNERS

Beware of using school computers for personal messages or for accessing Web sites that are hardly school business.

"All schools run their computer lines through a provider," warns Michael McCoy, attorney for the Utah Education Association, "which maintains detailed, documented records of which computer is used and the search terms used."

When sordid search words emanate from a computer under the control of specific employees, school authorities often call in a computer expert to gather evidence from every file on the hard drive- and any disk in the vicinity of that machine.

"If evidence is found," warns McCoy, "district authorities will discipline the user." Often the discipline is termination.

"Read your district computer use policy," McCoy advises. "Never access sex sites and don't write or send any message you wouldn't want your supervisor to read or hear about.

"I know of one educator who sent defamatory messages about a colleague over the district's server," McCoy recalls. "The educator thought the messages were private. The messages became public. The educator ended up without a job!"