CIPA, E-RATE, AND CELL PHONES

[Mary Mehsikomer]

This question gets put to me from time to time, and I just received it from a school district again the other day, so I thought I'd post my response here.

 

What are the E-rate rules as far as Internet filtering? Also, what are the specific rules around district cell phone use?

 

 

1. E-rate requires you to be in compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). This act requires you to have an Internet Safety Policy that is enforced, has had at least one public hearing and addresses the following:
a. A technology protection measure (filter) that protects against Internet access by both adults and minors to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or with respect to use of the computers by minors, harmful to minors.
b. The Internet Safety Policy must also include monitoring of the online activities of minors.
c. All Internet access must be filtered, whether for adults or minors, but you can have different settings for the filters depending on whether adults or minors are using the computers.
d. The Internet Safety Policy must also address
Access by minors to inappropriate material on the Internet and World Wide Web
The safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other direct forms of electronic communications;
Unauthorized access, including so-called “hacking,” and other unlawful activities by minors online;
Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors; and
Measures designed to restrict minors’ access to materials harmful to minors

Note: “inappropriate material” is left up to local definition.

2. Remember that CIPA is not criminal code and does not protect the district from any liability if someone comes to harm using the school network. It is strictly tied to E-rate and Title II D (E2T2) funding eligibility.
3. If you are audited for E-rate, the auditor will test your filter. They will basically go onto a school computer(s) and try to get to a pornographic site with images. Even if you are filtering, this is not a guarantee they won’t be able to do that, since we know that filtering technology operates primarily on key words and it won’t catch everything. They’ll try a few sites, and as long as they can see the filter is on, you are generally OK. They will also likely review your policy to make sure it addresses the items listed above and that you have some form of documentation that the policy had a public hearing at a school board meeting or whatever (it is listed on an agenda, minutes, etc. ).
4. Yes, I would be concerned about YouTube from a CIPA standpoint because it has the potential to contain material that could be considered pornographic images or harmful to minors. What I would be inclined to do in your shoes is allow the teachers to have access, but then make sure they use some sort of download software to capture the videos they want to use and then cache them for use in class. That way, they don’t just step up in front of class and open YouTube and have the video of the day have all kinds of nudity in it or something. This will also save you on bandwidth because they won’t be streaming live video, although depending on how much they want to cache it could impact your server capacity. Another option is to have them use SchoolTube or TeacherTube instead, which are vetted for content and do not have questionable content from a CIPA standpoint. They can also upload their own stuff to these sites if they want. SchoolTube and TeacherTube will not have as much content as YouTube, but it is safer to use from a CIPA perspective, in my opinion.
5. For the Fact Sheet on CIPA from the FCC, you can visit http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html. The SLD’s information on CIPA is at http://www.universalservice.org/sl/applicants/step10/cipa.aspx.
6. Regarding cell phones and E-rate, here is what we were told at the training from the SLD last October:
a. Cell phone service is eligible.
b. It must either be for SCHOOL use ONLY or you must do a cost allocation that removes any personal use from the costs.
c. They are auditing cell phone requests for personal use and claim to have recovered money from applicants on personal use.
7. In terms of cell phones, I would do one of the following:
a. Have a policy for district provided cell phones that they cannot be used for personal use or
b. If you are going to allow personal use, then I would calculate a certain percentage for personal use and take it off the top of your costs – but I would be very careful to document what percentage you arrived at for this and how it was derived.

There isn’t anything really specific on the SLD website in terms of this cell phone issue, but that is what we were told in training by Mel Blackwell, who is one of the top dogs at SLD. I expect they may have to revisit this as well because people now have smart phones with data plans out there – and how do you split out what is personal Internet access or not on those? You can check the 2010 Eligible Services List at http://www.universalservice.org/sl/tools/eligible-services-list.aspx for the information on what is eligible under telephone service, which includes cell phones.