The following policies and guidelines outline the standards for acceptable use of St. George’s School technology resources. This includes, but is not limited to, equipment, software, network, data, and communication devices. Each member of the St. George’s School community is required to act in respect of these policies and guidelines and always abide by the standards outlined for acceptable use. Those who do not comply will face suspension or termination of system privileges in addition to the appropriate disciplinary measures.
St. George’s provides and maintains computing and communication technologies to support the education of its students and the teaching and administrative responsibilities of its faculty and staff. Access to our network and its resources is a privilege that is granted to members of the school community, as long as they use it responsibly. St. George’s retains all rights to monitor activity and user accounts. Users should not have expectations of privacy, specific to school resources.
Users are expected to understand and abide by the rules for use of technology at St. George’s School. All school rules, particularly those pertaining to dishonesty, bullying and harassment, are applicable to the use of computers, telephones, mobile devices and other related technologies. If a student’s infraction involves the breaking of a major school rule, it will be dealt with under the guidelines for the Honor Code.
Equipment & Support: Non-enrolled student guests participating in St. George’s Summer School are responsible for furnishing their own reliable PC or Apple computer and secure internet connection. Chromebooks are not supported. In addition, students are required to facilitate their own local technical support, specific to their personal devices. St. George’s internal technical team will provide remote support for school-issued accounts and applications.
Bullying/Harassment: St. George’s School has a zero-tolerance policy concerning cyberbullying and harassment. Electronic harassment of any kind (e.g. personal email messages, websites, community posts, voice mail messages, texting, social media, etc.) will be treated as a violation of the Honor Code and dealt with accordingly.
Inappropriate Materials: Accessing or distributing materials from the dark web, drug content, pornographic material, and/or any other material inappropriate for a school environment are considered violations of school rules. Furthermore, making public or disseminating any material pertaining to the dark web or that is drug, pornographic, violent or otherwise harmful will be treated as harassment. Disseminating the Internet address of sites containing such material may also result in disciplinary action.
Intentional Negligence: Knowingly engaging in, or promoting in any way, any activity that might damage the operating systems or the data stored on any computer/device, removing or modifying system files, or disrupting any school services will result in disciplinary action. This includes intercepting or monitoring any network communications, creating and/or disseminating applications deemed harmful to the school operation, or finding ways to compromise or circumvent security or restrictions.
Content Sharing & Storage: Students are provided with temporary cloud storage, during their summer program. This is used to backup academic-related data. Students will not use this storage to host personal content. Cloud storage is retired upon completion of the student’s summer program. It is the responsibility of the student to download all academic content from cloud storage, prior to the retirement of their account. Accounts will not be reactivated to access materials, after completion of their program. Students will not store any music, movies, or other copyrighted materials in their school-issued cloud storage.
Digital Etiquette: All electronic communications and postings are expected to be in good taste at all times. Understanding that a wide variety of members of our community have access to these public resources, students must not create or send messages with inappropriate language, pictures or innuendo. It is a violation of the Honor Code to access, attempt to access or copy another user’s electronic communications.
Copyright: Members of our community are expected to follow all copyright laws as they pertain to the downloading, copying or distribution of commercial software and copyrighted media (movies, music, etc.). Violators could suffer legal consequences as well as jeopardize the school’s reputation.
Safety: Never give out personal information (address, phone number, etc.) over the Internet to someone whom you do not know. Students, faculty and staff are expected to keep their passwords private and protect the security of their computers/data. Passwords are never to be written down. All devices connecting to school resources should be password-protected, including but not limited to laptops, mobile phones and personal tablets. If you believe your password information has been compromised, change it immediately and speak with a Technology Department staff member.
Privacy: St. George’s School reserves the right to examine material stored on or transmitted through its facilities, if there is a potential violation of our acceptable use policy or legal violation. Access to electronic data will be granted to technicians or administrators in order to address issues, perform maintenance or respond to an emergency situation. These support providers will not access electronic data unless necessary and will respect the privacy of those users.
The school expects that its users will only access files and messages that belong to them, and that messages “from” a particular person’s username were indeed created by that person. Obtaining a password that belongs to someone else, posting a message under someone else’s name or using someone else’s privileges to access files, school systems or email is a violation of the Honor Code. Changing or “spoofing” the computer name, IP address or MAC address is also considered dishonest under this policy. Lastly, identifying yourself as another community member, whether on campus or off campus, is a direct violation.
