By Hillary Travis
Special to powhatantoday.com

School rules are as solid as cement.  You can chip away at the corners every now and then, but for the most part, they’re not going away any time soon.  Certainly everyone has their own grudge to place against one rule or another, and though most people are firmly outspoken against the dress code, my ultimate irritation resides with Powhatan High School’s policies on computers.  I understand that to a certain degree, yes, administrators need to regulate students’ use of the devices, but at the same time, we know the boundaries.  I quite frankly don’t think I need to have a school administrator monitoring my computer screen for every second that I am logged onto a computer.  It’s like having my mom hold my hand while I’m eating a bowl of cereal – it makes no sense whatsoever, and just shouldn’t be done.  Yet the school feels the need to invest in Synchroneyes, perhaps the worst program I’ve ever seen in my years of acquaintance with computer technology.

Synchroneyes is a program designed so that administrators can watch multiple students’ screens from their own monitor, and see every click of the mouse that those students make.  This means that if I want to finish up a paper for my English class during my lunch break, I have someone else watching my every keystroke as I do it.  Personally, I think the program hinders every student’s privacy, and takes school regulations to a new extremity, one that I don’t see as necessary at this point.  Yes, there are internet websites which students should not even consider straying near, and this program does allow the administrators to monitor such activities, but at the same time, if the school does not want me on a website, they should (and easily can) block it.  And for the times when I am “busted” (as fellow students like to say) by Syncroneyes, I get a wonderful message on my screen from an administrator reprimanding my actions.  On the occasion that this happens, I can click the box containing the message all I want, but the program does not allow me to message back in defense of myself.

Now, I’m not the kind of person who is going to wander over to a completely inappropriate website (just to clarify things), but I am one of the few students at the high school who does not have access to the internet from my home.  E-mail is one of the greatest modern commodities, and yet the school feels that students do not need access to it.  This means that when a college e-mails me to notify me of important information, or when I have to e-mail in an assignment to a teacher, or some other such necessity for which I need access to my e-mail account, I have to circumvent the rules and hope I don’t get caught.  Seniors are provided an e-mail account through the school system, however I choose not to use mine because of the privacy issues surrounding it.  The e-mail system provided is closely monitored, and administrators have access to every message that goes in or out of the account, which once again raises several issues.  If I need to e-mail a teacher about a problem I’m having in their class, for example, I feel like that is an issue between the two of us, and not something that the administration needs to know about.  Furthermore, I plan to continue accessing my personal e-mail account for as long as the school allows the site to go unblocked.  If it is so against school rules to use it, then why hasn’t the site been blocked?

I’m not saying by any means that I condone breaking any of the school rules, nor am I suggesting that others should follow my example.  I am only proposing that the school perhaps needs to reconsider some of its policies, and accommodate for students in situations such as mine, where we cannot access the internet from home.  And to anyone who plans to dodge the school’s internet-use policy, heed my warning:  Karma is indeed a terrible thing.  Every time I try to access my personal e-mail account from school, I end up in more shenanigans than I bargained for.  Once, I was scolded for plugging two flash drives into a computer simultaneously, and told I would be sent to the principal for it (even though I am yet to see any school rules that condemn such an act of technology usage).  After an intense defense of my actions, I stormed off for a grand exit from the room.  Grabbing my messenger bag, I threw it over my shoulder (without thinking its contents, a critical error in this case).  In an instant, metal cans of diced tomatoes I had brought in for the school’s food drive went rolling across the floor.  Perhaps it was a sign that I should just follow the rules and succumb to the demands of the administrators, or perhaps I am the victim of an untold urban legend, and the invisible rule enforcers that lurk near school computers were punishing me for my disobedience.  While I would prefer to believe the latter, it goes without saying that school rules and policies are put in place for a reason.  I may not agree with their reasoning, but many people of higher authority apparently did.