La Vernia ISD Internet Acceptable Posting Policy
(APP) for Employees and Students

Rationale:

School web pages are public documents welcoming the outside world to the school and linking students and employees to sources of information. Guidelines are required in the construction of school web pages to ensure that information on the pages is appropriate for any Internet user from within the community and around the world to access. Web pages should support the educational aims of La Vernia ISD Schools.

In producing web pages, the following goals should be considered:

1. Introducing outside visitors to the School and/or District and its programs,
2. Fostering communication of information between students, employees, parents and the community,
3. Sharing the School's and/or District’s successes with the world,
4. Linking users to good information resources, and
5. Providing top-quality, family-friendly content that is appropriate to and in compliance with the mission statement, educational goals and objectives of La Vernia ISD.

Posting Requirements:

1. Campus Webmaster

Any school setting up a home page shall have a campus webmaster appointed by the principal. The campus webmaster shall assist the principal of the school in ensuring that these guidelines are adhered to and that the content of the school web pages meets the principal's approval. The campus webmaster is the only person in the school authorized to upload files to the web server. The principal must review and approve the school web page before posting.

2. Campus Home Page

The campus home page shall be located on the District's server. If the school has additional web pages on one or more sites on external web servers, then the campus home page shall provide direct links to all sites. All campus web pages must conform to these guidelines regardless of the location, whether on the La Vernia ISD web server or an external web server. The campus home page shall indicate the date of the last revision.

3. Content of Web Pages

The content of all school web pages must be consistent with the educational aims of the La Vernia Independent School District and with the policies and spirit of the La Vernia ISD School Board.

4. Communication Links

No web page content may allow people accessing the page to contact any student directly. Communication with respect to the content of any page must be directed either to the principal of the school, the developer of the page or to the campus webmaster. Campus home pages must include a "mailto:" link to the campus webmaster.

5. Advertisements

School web pages may contain small acknowledgments of school partnerships or sponsorships. Web pages may provide links to partners' or sponsors' web pages.

6. External Links

All links connecting to external sites must be approved by the campus webmaster, and are subject to final approval by the principal; this includes teacher/classroom web pages hosted on external servers.

7. Identification of Students and Employees

For a student's first name and/or picture and/or information about the student to appear on a school web page, the school must obtain parental permission on the Distance Learning/Video Release Form. This form was provided to the parent/guardian in the enrollment package.  This form must be renewed each school year.

Only number, topic, class or first name may be used to identify student work.  A student's full name or e-mail address may NEVER appear on a web page.  Student work may include but is not limited to; web pages, artwork, graphic design, written documents, multimedia presentations, projects, etc.

Filenames for pages and images should be checked to ensure that students' names do not appear there, e.g., marysmith.gif, jimpaul.html.

Written permission must be obtained from any employee prior to displaying his/her photograph or information.

8.  Teacher/Classroom Web pages

Teacher/Classroom web pages will promote student learning and must be consistent with the educational aims of La Vernia ISD.  The creator of the page is responsible for the content of any external links.  The page must adhere to the rules above for posting of student work. We encourage classroom web pages to be linked from the school site. Contact the campus webmaster with the appropriate site address or files for uploading to the school site.

9. Personal Home Pages

Personal home pages for students or employees are not permitted to be linked from the school web site. Students may create "content" pages under their instructor's supervision, but not personal pages about themselves. Similarly, employees may create pages that are educationally oriented. Linking to a student's or staff member's personal page on an external site is not permitted.

10. Respecting Copyright

Copyright must be respected. The author of the web page must not use copyrighted materials without permission. This includes icons and “buttons”, images, background watermarks, sounds and video.

11. Claiming Copyright

Copyright may be claimed by the author for his/her own original work.

Style Guide: (The following items are suggestions - not mandatory, but recommended.)

1. Avoid "Under Construction" signs on a home page; construct the page before placing it on the Web. If UNDER CONSTRUCTION graphics are necessary, please do not keep them on any page longer than four (4) weeks.
   
2. The date of the last update to the page should be clearly identified for page viewers.
   
3. Images should be displayed with width and height set. Large images should be avoided.
   
4. Pages should accommodate a variety of browsers, including text-only browsers when feasible.  Avoid making pages that require unusual plugins.
   
5. Pages should be checked for spelling and proofread before they are displayed.
   
6. Internal documentation should be maintained along with the source code. It should consist of the author's name (teacher's name may be more appropriate if author is a student), and creation and revision dates. Any unusual content or styles should be noted. Written permission authorizing the use of any copyrighted material must be maintained
   
7. Facilitate travel through your web pages. Provide hypertext links wherever possible. Keep URL's as simple as possible.

Restrictions
Students and Employees of La Vernia ISD are Precluded from:

• Posting, linking to or sending any transmissions or files constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, giving rise to civil liability, or otherwise violating any local, state, national or international law, including without limitation the U.S. export control laws and regulations.
• Posting or transmitting any information or software that contains a virus, worm, cancelbot or other harmful component.
• Uploading, posting, publishing, transmitting, reproducing, distributing or participating in the transfer or sale of any information, software or other material obtained through the Internet which is protected by copyright or other proprietary right or derivative works with respect thereto, without obtaining permission of the copyright owner or right holder.
• Abusing or fraudulently using the Web Posting Service in any way not specifically set forth above.

Additionally,

• Chain letters are not allowed to be posted.
• Irresponsible postings that result in large numbers of complaints to La Vernia ISD Administration will result in posting privileges being disabled.
• Illegal postings, such as harassment, pornography or copyrighted software or other data (such as mp3 sound files) are grounds for immediate termination of the user’s web-posting privileges and/or computer access, and will result in subsequent disciplinary action and/or prosecution.

Any disregard for the above conditions may result in your computer access privileges being disabled, along with any and all other appropriate District, local, state, national and international actions including prosecution of all involved perpetrators.

Web Page Posting Ethics:

Before posting any material on the web, ask yourself this question:
1) Would I put this in a local or national newspaper for anyone to read?
If you answered "no", then it doesn't belong on a web page.

Penalties and Disciplinary Actions for APP Violations:

Violations of the La Vernia ISD Acceptable Posting Policy (APP) are treated as violations of the La Vernia ISD Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and/or La Vernia ISD Student Handbook and Personnel Handbook policies, and qualify the offender for any and all appropriate actions and punishments as set forth in the AUP and Handbooks, including suspension and expulsion of students and dismissal of employees.