Privacy Policy

The Broken Bow Public Schools highly esteem the privacy, safety, and dignity of its students and patrons. Our Acceptable Use of Technology policy and Release of Student Records policy describe the procedures, methods, and rules employed by the school district concerning the use of student information and its technology systems. A copy of the Acceptable Use policy can be obtained by clicking on the link above. The Release of Student Records policy is reproduced below. A printed copy of either can be obtained by request from the Superintendent's Office.

Privacy, Safety, and Offensive Content

There are three Federal laws that affect how the school district uses its technology systems, described in detail below. FERPA protects the privacy of students and their families in all aspects of education, not just technology. COPPA guards the safety of children 13 years old and under by limiting the kind and amount of information that schools can gather and publish through the Internet. CIPA blocks access to offensive and harmful Internet information such as pornography through school equipment.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
Release of Student Records (Policy # 5125.1)

Access to a pupil's academic and disciplinary records are limited to: the pupil, his parents, guardians, teachers, counselors, or school administrators. No confidential information may be divulged to unauthorized persons.

Academic records and disciplinary matters are maintained separately. Disciplinary matters are destroyed following the student's graduation. Such material is not transmitted beyond the school except under court order.

Parents who wish to further limit the information made available on their children must notify the Office of the Superintendent of Schools by September 1 of each school year. Otherwise, the school district will continue to follow state and federal law on what infomration can be given out about students. The information which can be made public is: name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, current grade level, participation in recognized activities and sports, height and weight on athletic teams, dates of attendance, diploma and awards, most recent previous schools and names of parents and/or guardians.

Read more about FERPA at
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

Children's On-Line Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

The Broken Bow Public Schools maintains an Acceptable Use of Technology Policy that defines and regulates technology systems privacy issues in addition to compliance with the more general FERPA compliance described above.

The Broken Bow Public Schools does not solicit personal information about students age 13 and under through email, websites, or other publicly accessible technology systems. We occasionally conduct anonymous opinion polls through our public web site and publish the statistical results on the web site. Such polls are supervised, approved and published by the professional staff of the school district for educational purposes. No individual information about respondents is published or retained.

Professional staff need the ability to communicate with parents and students through email about individual student issues that FERPA regulates. COPPA requires the school district to obtain consent annually from parents and/or guardians of students 13 years old or under to communicate directly with them on an on-going basis via the student's own personal email account. Consent is not required to communicate with parents or students over 13 years old. Parents and/or guardians who so desire must provide written consent to the Office of the Superintendent by September 1 of each school year.

For further information please contact the Superintendent of Schools at 38-872-6821 or write to 323 North 7th Avenue, Broken Bow, NE 68822.

Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

The Children's Internet Protection Act applies to schools and public libraries where minors have public access to the Internet. While the Act has been held to be unconstitutional for public libraries, public schools are still required to comply in order to receive Federal technology grant funding. It's purpose is to shield minors from offensive or harmful content on the Internet. Unlike COPPA, it is not related to information gathered or published by the school district, but only to already-available information outside the district that could be accessed using district equipment.

Our Acceptable Use of Technology policy defines and manages student and staff access to the Internet as follows:

Students are allowed access to the Internet automatically when the are enrolled in the district. Parents may revoke Internet access by filing a request with the Superintendent's Office prior to September 1 of each year or at the time of enrollment.
A teacher or appointed supervisor must be present in the room during student Internet access and aware of the access process.
The access must be in response to curriculum-related exercises assigned by a teacher.
Direct electronic communications services such as e-mail, chat, or other electronic messaging services are not provided or permitted for students, including accounts they may own or lease through privately-contracted or free service providers. Web access to such services will be blocked.
Internet access through all workstations will be filtered to block access to offensive content. Occasionally, such filtering systems inadvertently block access to legitimate research; the Technology Coordinator's Office will consider unblocking of specific sites on a case-by-case basis on teacher request when necessary

For further information please contact the Superintendent of Schools at 38-872-6821 or write to 323 North 7th Avenue, Broken Bow, NE 68822.

Read more about CIPA at
http://www.sl.universalservice.org/reference/CIPA.asp