A couple of years ago, I was teaching special college courses for the local technical college here in the area. The courses were part of an alliance between our college and the county school system. We were offering the students a chance to get college credit while they were still in high school. And we taught it at the county career center rather than the college campus. The students had to pass our college entrance exam to be eligible, of course. I was teaching them 'PC Maintenance and Repair' and 'Computer Networking'. For those kids who were willing to work, it was a great opportunity to get a headstart on college. Some of them did quite well, too. Of course, there are always the students who show up thinking that you are just going to pass them for showing up and taking the tests. About three or four of them did not complete both courses. I told them up front it wasn't going to be a free ride.
I was an adjunct at the college and I wasn't a staff member of the county school system. Therefore, I did not have an email account from either one of them. I do have Web access to my email account on my domain 'mishmash.com'. I would pull up a browser at the school to view my messages with some of them from the college, some of them from folks at the school district, and some of them my own messages for different things I was involved in.
One day (after I'd been teaching there for about a month and a half), I tried to pull up the Web access for my mail server and got the school district message saying that the site had been blocked. I called and asked why. I was told it was because students were not allowed to access their personal email from school district computers.
I pointed out that there was only one email account on that site, that it was my account, and that I had no other email address to use for college and school correspondence. I assured them that I was not going to give students email accounts on my mail server.
It took a couple of weeks, a written justification, and a few phone calls and emails to the right people, but finally they lifted the block.
On another note, I later discovered that they had QSL Net blocked as an 'inappropriate site' (I know the ham radio operators on TD will be quite shocked by this). I wrote up a justification for unblocking it and made a few phone calls and emails. But before the end of the semester, I convinced them that there was no justification for blocking it. It took a good fight and I got a lady ham radio operator at the school district headquarters involved. But we got it done.
Sadly, they do these things without looking at how it adversely affects faculty and staff and what it may deprive the kids of. On the latter, ham radio is a very educational hobby and they shouldn't be denying the kids access to information about it.
Regards,
Fred,
WB4AEJ