Internet Safety and Network Use Policy

The Manchester Essex Regional School District offers Internet access to its students, faculty, and staff. Access to the school’s computer network and the Internet service is a privilege, not a right. The intent of this policy is to ensure that users utilize this access in a manner consistent with the purpose of the District’s provision of this Internet service. 

Purpose 

The primary purpose of the Manchester Essex Regional School District’s Internet service is to support the educational objectives of the Manchester Essex Regional School District and its educational community in general. The Internet service is not a public forum and the Manchester Essex Regional School District reserves the right to place reasonable limits on materials posted or accessed through the Internet service. 

Responsibilities of Students, Faculty, and Staff 

Students, faculty, staff, and other users of the District’s computer network agree to comply with this policy when using the District’s computer network. Use of the District computer network must be in support of education and research. The following is a list of prohibited behaviors. While the list is not exhaustive, it illustrates unacceptable uses of the District’s computer network. 

1. Any use for commercial purposes is prohibited (e.g. advertising, selling, offering to sell, or purchasing products or services). Any use for political purposes is prohibited except using the Internet service to communicate with elected officials. 
2. Network accounts are to be used only by the authorized owner of the account. Users shall not share other user’s passwords or seek to learn or change other user’s passwords, modify other user’s files or data, or misrepresent other users of the network. 
3. Users shall not intentionally disrupt the use of the network or devices attached to the network. 

5. Users agree that hardware or software shall not be destroyed, modified, damaged, or abused in any way. 
6. Malicious use of the network to develop programs or computer viruses that harass other users, infiltrate a computer or computer system, damage the software components of a computer or computing system are prohibited.
7. Loading, transmitting, or intentional receipt of hate mail, harassment, threats, and other illegal and/or antisocial behaviors are prohibited on the network. 

7. Any use for, or in support of, illegal purposes or activities is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, gaining unauthorized access to other systems, arranging for the sale or purchase of drugs or alcohol, participating in criminal gang activity, threatening others, transferring obscene material, or attempting to do any of the above. 
8. Use of the network to access or process sexually explicit and/or pornographic material, information about dangerous instruments such as weapons, bombs or explosive devices, inappropriate or obscene materials, illegal software, or files dangerous to the integrity of the local area network or any attached device is prohibited. 
9. Users shall not post inappropriate messages when visiting Internet discussion boards, chat rooms, instant messaging or in sending e-mail messages using the Manchester Essex network. 
10. Students shall not reveal any identifying personal information about themselves or others such as names or e-mail addresses to others. 

11. Software is protected by copyright laws; therefore users shall not make unauthorized copies of software or media found on school computers. 

12. Users shall not download or install software on District computers without authorization from the computer staff. 

13. Users shall not copy or download copyrighted material without authorization from the copyright holder unless the copies are used for teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. Users should use proper citation when referring to the downloaded text, images, and other media. 
14. Users shall not plagiarize material obtained from the Internet. Any material obtained from the Internet and included in one's own work must be cited and credited by name or by electronic address or path on the Internet. Information obtained through e-mail or news sources must also be credited as to sources. 
15. Users shall not override the Internet filtering software except that staff may disable the filter for purposes of bona fide research.