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Schools use the net to eavesdrop on students

While social networking sites are not accessible from school computers, Lila Mularczyk, the deputy president of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, recently argued that cyber-bullying connected with school was treated in the same way, no matter when it occurred.

”If the out-of-hours harassment is an extension of school relationships or a school event, that is [considered] part of the school day,” she said.

Mrs Booth said: ”We monitor the girls’ usage of the internet both internally and externally, not because we want to stop them but because we want them to use it in a safe manner.

”We don’t want them putting things out there that might put them in danger.”

But Cameron Murphy, the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said that the monitoring was an ”outrageous invasion” of students’ privacy.

”Just because students may discuss things about school over the phone at night, it wouldn’t be appropriate or lawful for a school to tap someone’s phone and make decisions about them on that basis. Just because it happens to be a social networking site, it shouldn’t be any different,” he said.

But Mr Griffin, of SR7, said schools must act out of a duty of care to their students.

”Social media and cyber-bullying is simply an issue of the modern day that schools have to acknowledge and understand they can do something about,” he said.

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