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My position is not ‘don’t block,’ but let’s filter reasonably and let’s also talk with students about choices and digital literacy and ethics, and let’s prepare kids for the unfiltered Web.

“We know kids use these tools, so we really feel obligated to help kids use them right and prepare them for what they face in the world every day,” said Superintendent Suzanne Freeman, who has two teenagers attending high school in the district. “Kids have access to a lot [on the Internet], whether we want to believe it or not. I would worry about it if we didn’t prepare kids to use these tools properly.”

“I’m a big advocate for experiential learning, but it’s kind of hard to teach Internet etiquette or rules of how to act and interact online without exposing them to the stuff that’s out there,” Mr. Jenkins said. “It’s hard to teach those things in a vacuum.”

“The best filters we can provide to kids are the ones we build in their brains,”

In 2001, the Children’s Internet Protection Act instituted new requirements for schools to establish policies and safeguards for Internet use as a condition of receiving federal E-rate funding.

The American Library Association’s Center for Intellectual Freedom, for example, recommends that schools minimize filtering so they do not infringe students’ rights to access information and to express themselves.

“Prohibiting young people from accessing Internet resources, including social-networking tools, does not teach safe behavior,” said Angela Maycock, the assistant director of the center. “Filtering leaves young people without the knowledge and experience they need to protect their own privacy online, and, more importantly, to engage in responsible speech.”

Students generally want those opportunities at school as well. A national survey of middle and high school students found that most believe schools are not preparing them for the kinds of technology-based tasks that have become essential for success at school and at work, according to findings of the sixth annual survey from the Speak Up National Research Project, released in March.

Students are using personal technology tools more readily to study subject matter, collaborate with classmates, and complete assignments than they were several years ago, but they are generally asked to “power down” at school and abandon the electronic resources they rely on for learning outside of class, the survey found. Administrators generally cite safety issues and concerns that students will misuse such tools to dawdle, cheat, or view inappropriate content in school as reasons for not offering more open online access to students. ("Students See Schools Inhibiting Their Use of New Technologies,", April 1, 2009.)

A report commissioned by the NSBA found that social networking can be beneficial to students, and urged school board members to “find ways to harness the educational value” of so-called Web 2.0 tools, such as setting up chat rooms or online journals that allow students to collaborate on their classwork. The 2007 report also told school boards to re-evaluate policies that ban or tightly restrict the use of the Internet or social-networking sites.

Educate minors about appropriate and inappropriate online behavior, including activities like cyberbullying and social networking;