986168 PD: 4 Superintendent Starr Calls for Cybercivility During last weeks snow days, Superintendent of Montgomery County

Public Schools, Joshua Starr, received rude messages over Twitter from MCPS students threatening him to close school for the snow days. Many of these tweets, however, were offensive and disturbing. Some were threatening to me and others. A few referenced my family. There was rampant use of racial epithets and curse words, wrote Starr in an open letter to MCPS parents, some of the tweets I received were so disturbing that my staff reported them to the school principal and our security team. Montgomery Blair High School Assistant Principal, Suzanne Harvey, said that to her knowledge none of the tweets came from Blair students. However, if they had she would try to have the parents and the student come in to talk to me. To make sure our expectations for the student were the same. I have yet to meet a parent who disagrees with my expectations. She agrees with Starr that cybercivility is an issue that should be enforced more in schools. Cybercivility is how we can help our children grow into responsible and caring adults who interact with one another in a civil, respectful way, wrote Starr. He has taken the initiative to have his staff begin to create materials to help schools and parents discuss this topic with students. School administrators believe that this initiative is a great idea. Social media has taken off in such a short amount of time that etiquette hasnt had time to be established. Said Harvey, Colleges will be looking at what students put on online. Parents have been voicing similar reasons. Most groups that you join as an adult have a code of conduct that says you can disagree without being disagreeable. Said Blair parent Julie Queen, Cybercivility as a form of education

for children is a good idea to better prepare them for the real world. Students however, have taken a more skeptical view of the new initiative. I dont think it will make a difference. Said Blair sophomore, Kayla Poawui. We can work to stop it, said Albert Einstein High School sophomore, Emeka Johnson, but there will always be a**hole kids to be honest. Despite previous problems with Twitter, Starr still encouraged parents to tweet or email him with questions about the initiative until the materials are widely distributed.