Kentucky K-12 and Internet 'filtering' (maybe Part 1 of...?)

I thought I’d take a few minutes to discuss Internet filtering. In actuality, this will likely result in several posts. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll split it into “why we do it”, “what we do” and “what do I think of it?”

With that in mind, I'll start with the "why". In Kentucky K-12, the first mention of Internet “filtering” usually results in a response involving Senate Bill 230. What is that? This was a state law passed in 1998 that was focused on the prevention of sexually explicit material being transmitted to school districts.

As an aside, it’s worth noting how the legal process works in a case like this. The legislature passes the law – this is a Kentucky Revised Statute. The “law” surrounding “Senate Bill 230” is actually KRS 156.675, which is the Kentucky Revised Statute. For those who recall past debates with Jeff Nelson over the “at no cost” phrase for a solution, this is where you’ll find it.

The law tasks the state’s Board of Education with the creation of administrative regulations to enforce the law. This led to 701 KAR 5:120 (KAR being the acronym for Kentucky Administrative Regulation). This regulation led to several things, including mandatory acceptable use policies and standards for filtering technology (ours was originally Microsoft Proxy 2.0).

As a Kentucky school district, which do I have to follow? I’ve been asked this before and you could ask the same thing about other topics such as adherence to the KETS Master Plan. The state Board of Education is one of the entities given the authority to promulgate (basically ‘proclaim’ or put a law into action) administrative regulations. You see references to the authority given in the first lines of the regulation. Once the regulation is adopted, it (the KAR) essentially becomes the law.

There’s the “state law” lesson for the day. There’s also the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act that’s often referenced when discussing Internet filtering. Most of the federal requirements are encompassed in our state’s legal requirements.

We have a page on the KDE web site that discusses our implementation of Senate Bill 230. It provides some of the links noted above as well. In future posts, maybe I can explore some of the specific language and the challenges it brings as technology has changed during the past ten years...