Whoever thought e-mail would become a steady form of communication in our schools? Maybe it hasn’t penetrated every, or even most school districts in our country yet, but it’s clear that parents and teachers in the Everett School District are making use of it.
Some parents were stunned to learn their e-mails had been rejected by the district’s server because some e-mail providers had to be banned from the system. District officials are investigating e-mail threats that have been so disruptive to students and teachers they’ve had to ban e-mails from some providers. Those services, including Hotmail, Yahoo! and Juno, offer customers anonymous and often untraceable online communication. The cutoff is a blow to parents who use those popular e-mail services to communicate throughout the week with their child’s teachers.
But it’s not the end of the world and parents should apply extra patience as the district works to investigate the threats and restore full service.
At first glance, the problem doesn’t seem that difficult to solve. One parent’s comment, that the district’s decision was like deciding not to take phone calls after receiving an untraceable bomb threat by phone, made sense. But, as school district spokeswoman Gay Campbell pointed out, it’s not that simple. Phone threats and even written threats are much easier to trace than e-mails, which can be routed throughout the world in an effort to throw off investigators. E-mail from untraceable servers add another difficult component to the mix.
The district has an information technology department that is busy researching the matter and working with local police agencies to uncover the source of the threats. It’s unfortunate the technology department has to spend its time resolving this matter. But staff deserves credit for trying to find a way to let good e-mail make it through the district’s old server and to the teachers.
Until that happens, parents who depend on e-mail will have to fall back on the ancient communication forms of the telephone and voice mail. Every classroom has a telephone, Campbell said. If parents leave a message, the teacher can still e-mail them back. Besides, they should always save private conversations about students for in-person meetings or the telephone. E-mails can easily go astray.
While parents are practicing patience, the district must continue to find a way to restore and update its system. That will likely mean new hardware and software. That’s not cheap. An upcoming levy may help, if it passes.
E-mail is not a luxury anymore. And it’s more than just a convenience. It’s a viable form of communication that has flaws as well as incredible benefits. With a little updating and patience, both parents and schools will figure out a way to make safe and responsible use of it.
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