Schools grapple with policing students' online journals

Deborah Finlay, guidance director at a middle school in Virginia, first tuned into the dangers when a student committed suicide and cyberbullying appeared to be a big factor.

Now, she and other guidance staff conduct regular "netiquette" sessions with every class on safety and bullying and also educate parents. "The parents in many cases are just as naive as the kids," she says.

Bernard Piel, a history teacher and assistant to the dean at Norman Thomas High School in New York, recently talked to a student who posted provocative photos. "I want you to imagine that you're 24 years old, you're trying to get a job somewhere, HR does a background check, and these things come up," he told her.

It's a question few teens think about. Posting publicly "is online attention-getting," Willard says. "They become the stars of their own reality TV show."

But some students say it's more than that.

Sergio Barraza-Valdez, a sophomore at Exeter in New Hampshire, uses his LiveJournal page for a very personal journal.

"It's helpful for people to know what's going on, if you're having a hard time getting through something, and you kind of don't want to tell someone but you kind of do," Sergio explains. "And it's nice when people leave comments being supportive."

Over his winter break, Sergio's stepfather died and a good friend from home committed suicide. Writing about it - and getting support from his scattered friends - was a good outlet, he says. "People understood when I came back what had happened."

Still, Sergio says that learning what to write and what to keep to himself has been a trial-and-error process. "I misused it a lot, last year especially. I wrote really mean things about people," he says. "It's easier to let out your emotions instead of keeping your cool like you would in person."

That blogging could be a positive social outlet was hard to understand until kids explained it to her, says Ms. Aftab, who trains teens and parents to be Internet safety leaders. "One girl told me, 'I'm new to the school, I'm shy, I'm not the prettiest girl, but I go on great vacations... If the other kids find out how interesting I am, maybe they'll be my friend,' " she recounts.

To give them a safer outlet, Aftab has helped develop a new site, YFly.com, which will launch in February - designed solely for teens. "If I find anybody over the age of 18, I have permission to call the cops," says Aftab.

In the meantime, schools are reacting to the blog challenges as best they can. Many outlaw use of the sites on school computers - though kids find ways to get past the filters. Schools have a harder time controlling what gets posted at home, even if it has a tangible effect within school walls.

"If a student is identifying an individual, or making a statement that threatens violence, that's a different kind of speech than something we might consider vulgar or offensive," says Patrick Rocks, general counsel for the Chicago Board of Education. "There's no bright line. It's more of a continuum."

A few private and parochial schools have tried to ban use of some blogs even at home. But experts say schools are on shaky legal ground, and some face lawsuits. One Pittsburgh senior is currently suing his school district on free-speech grounds, with the help of the ACLU, after he was suspended for parodying his principal on his MySpace site.

Aftab suggests establishing a policy at the beginning of the school year, which outlines acceptable Internet use and disciplines students who violate it. "Then it's a contractual issue," she says.

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