Electronic Mail (E-mail), Voice Mail and telephones are provided to members of the staff for
educational purposes, and for the purpose of conducting the business of the organization.
E-mail may be provided to students for educational purposes only. IUSD encourages
the use of e-mail and voice mail services to share information, to improve
communication, and to exchange ideas. Occasional, reasonable, personal use is allowable.
While all e-mail and voice mail are considered private and confidential,
confidentiality cannot be ensured. Users, therefore, should exercise extreme caution in
using e-mail or voice mail to communicate confidential or sensitive matters.
Users should be aware that deleted messages and files are rarely gone.
As pointed
out by others, the privacy of e-mail is somewhere between that of a letter and a postcard.
Users should not assume that the author of an e-mail message consents
to the forwarding of that message to another person.
E-mail and voice mail should be reviewed only by the person to whom it is addressed and
is not to be reviewed by any staff member, including those with sufficient computer system
privileges to do so. However, users should also be aware that on occasion, network and computer
operations personnel and system administrators may, during the performance of their
duties, inadvertently see/hear the contents of e-mail or voice mail messages.
Except as
required legally or in extreme emergency, they are not permitted to do so intentionally,
nor to disclose or otherwise use what they may have seen/heard. Management, however,
reserves the right to periodically review for good reason, and/or to monitor employees'
use of any electronic system and the right to disclose any information
on records to satisfy any law, regulation, or other governmental request.
Management also reserves the right to remove any content that it
deems in its sole discretion to be unacceptable, undesirable, or in
violation of these terms of use, and to terminate the privileges of any
user or visitor who misuses or fails to abide by these terms of use.
All employees are expected to conduct themselves with the same integrity and personal
demeanor in electronic communications as in face-to-face dealings with one another.
In order to protect privacy rights, when sending e-mail messages, students shall not
include information, such as last names, home addresses or telephone numbers that could
specifically identify themselves, and no user shall include information that would
specifically identify someone else.
During instructional time in any given classroom, the telephone will be set to voice
mail only.
Any use perceived to be illegal, harassing, derogatory, inflammatory, offensive or in
violation of other IUSD policies, could be the basis for disciplinary action, including
restriction of access to the system, up to and including termination of employment.
Unacceptable practices include, but are not limited to:
- abuse of computer resources
- any attempt to break in to, or to disrupt computer or telephone resources at IUSD or other sites
- extreme etiquette violations, including mail or messages that
degrade, defame, demean or harass other
individuals, or mail or messages that are offensive sexually,
racially, or in any other way
- sharing of one's e-mail or voice mail account, or one's access password, or using
another's account and/or access password
- use of e-mail or voice mail or district provided phones for commercial or private business purposes
- use of e-mail for advertising or solicitation
- engaging in illegal acts, such as gambling, copyright
infringement, etc.
- placing or receiving telephone calls in the classroom during assigned instructional
time, except for emergencies
Board Policy Adopted: March 18, 1997
Revised: October 6, 1998
Revised: December 14, 1999
Revised: February 1, 2000
