To encourage students to try to do their best, several teachers started posting student work online. I was taken aback when I heard that some parents asked the teachers to take their child’s work off the Web site. Why would they object?
It’s difficult to guess what the parents might have been thinking, but this experience does bring up an important point. We want to give students opportunities to share their work with an audience that extends outside the classroom walls, but when we do we also need to get parental permission. You wouldn’t allow a newspaper to publish an essay written by a student without a signed consent from the parent. This situation isn’t all that different.
Work with someone in your district office to develop a consent form for publishing student work on the Web, and then make sure that teachers use it!
Submitted by: Susan Brooks-Young
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