ONLINE LESSONS; SCHOOLS MAKE SAFETY PRIORITY FOR STUDENTS.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

At Monte Vista Elementary School in La Crescenta, every pupil who uses the Internet knows the drill: Never give your name, home address or phone number over the Internet.

``You never know who's on the other side of the Internet chatting with you - and that can be bad,'' said Ross Potter, a fifth-grader at the school, where parents and teachers have established policies to safeguard pupils' privacy while online.

Located in the foothills above Glendale, the campus is on the front lines of an issue that has gripped the federal government and sent the Glendale Unified School District searching for solutions.

How to protect students while allowing them access to the World Wide Web has posed a challenge for the 30,000-student school district, which is looking to bolster its computer policy with more specific guidelines on the publication of photos and kids' names online.

``We're wrestling with how much personal information we want to put on Web sites,'' said Vic Pallos, spokesman for the district, which has hired an independent consultant to submit a list of suggested guidelines in February.

Young targets

``There are people who pick these kids out and go after them,'' Pallos said. No such incidents have occurred in Glendale schools, but there have been such cases elsewhere, he said.

``We have heard of several situations nationwide where images have been seen on the Internet of young children and teen-agers (in which) those children and young adults were pursued in one way or another and either kidnapped or had other inappropriate contact made,'' Pallos said. ``We don't want that to happen here as a result of posting images on our Web sites.''

It is an issue that has caught other school districts off guard as well. In August, the Los Angeles Unified School District updated its policy to include Internet use.

Under LAUSD's guidelines, adult and child computer users are prohibited from posting personal information such as telephone numbers, names, or home or e-mail addresses without first obtaining the permission of the person affected.

Beyond the classroom

Keeping up with changes in cyberspace has proved daunting for school districts.

``Four years ago, our acceptable use policy was dealing with e-mail and research,'' said Andy Rogers, unit coordinator for LAUSD's Instructional Technology Division, which oversees the district's computer-use policies. ``Now, research is completely different and e-mail is now just a component of what the Internet is used for.''

In Burbank, district officials also are struggling to keep up with technological advances that extend far beyond the classroom's traditional four walls.

``We've not had this kind of tool with this kind of capacity to reach out beyond the classroom or library and it poses many wonderful challenges as well as opening the universe to everybody,'' said Gregory Bowman, assistant superintendent of the Burbank Unified School District. ``It's an interactive tool, so it's new to all of us.''

Like the LAUSD, Burbank and other districts, Glendale also requires students, parents and teachers to sign permission slips before kids can use campus computers. And while district policy forbids computer users from revealing personal addresses or phone numbers, it doesn't yet address the online publication of student photos or names.

``The question is what is appropriate to put on the Internet that can be seen by anybody in the world?'' Pallos said. ``There doesn't seem to be a pat answer.''

Glendale officials have spoken to school districts around the country and learned that most do not publish photos of elementary school children.

``Some districts don't use any photos, but stock photography'' with images of children models, Pallos said. ``I'm not sure we're going to do that, but whatever policies we adopt, we're going to be discreet with images of small children.''

Protecting privacy

In the meantime, Glendale schools have been left to devise their own Internet privacy policies.

At Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, the online version of the campus newspaper does not feature photos of any students - including teen-age staff members. The budding journalists fear that the students pictured could be harassed by cyberspace predators.

``We wanted to protect the students from being exploited,'' said Michelle Carcereny, editor in chief of the Tornado Times. ``Once we put it on the Internet everyone in the world would have access to it. They would be able to stalk you and get phone numbers.''

As a result, the newspaper decided to nix a Web page component that would have featured photos and personal information of reporters. Instead, the staff decided to publish their e-mail addresses along with copies of articles and columns from the newspaper.

Safeguarding privacy not only is a safety concern but a practical one as well, child advocates said.

``There's this whole issue of marketing to children,'' said Katharina Kopp, senior policy analyst at the Center for Media Education, a Washington, D.C.-based children's advocacy group. ``Marketers are aware that children are lucrative spenders and have a tremendous influence on household purchases.''

Kopp and others have called for seeking parental permission beforehand in the case of Web sites that collect personal information from children.

Monte Vista school officials said they have struck the right balance with Web sites by requiring students and parents to sign permission slips and teaching kids how to protect their privacy in special e-mail etiquette classes.

Under campus policy, only first names are used when student work is published online. Parents and stdon't use any photos, but stock photography'' with images of children models, Pallos said. ``I'm not sure we're going to do that, but whatever policies we adopt, we're going to be discreet with images of small children.''

udents also need to sign permission slips before the work can be released.

``This is years of planning and thinking,'' said Carla Walker, a Monte Vista fifth-grade teacher and the school's Web staff adviser. ``This is not something we planned overnight.''

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PHOTO Pupils go online at the La Crescenta campus of Monte Vista Elementary School, which has revised policies to protect privacy.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News