Campuses seeking better, quicker notification system

In the wake of this week's massacre at Virginia Tech, authorities are examining better ways to let students know when something has happened on campus:

"When you're in the middle of something, two hours is not very long. But when you're looking in, it does seem like a long time," says Mitchell Celaya, the assistant chief of campus police at the University of California, Berkeley.

At UC Berkeley, Celaya says an extreme emergency would warrant, among other things, a siren on an outdoor public address system, followed by an announcement with instructions.

Teens limiting personal information online

An article in the April 18 issue of USA Today, teens are limiting the information they reveal about themselves online:

Dashiell Feiler, a 16-year-old high school junior, said he keeps his profiles open, but uses at most his first name and last initial. He said people who find him tend to be friends anyway, but he left off his full name as a precaution.

"I just thought I didn't want anybody to figure out where I live," he said.

According to Pew, 45% of online teens do not have profiles at all, a figure that contradicts widespread perceptions that the nation's youths are continually on MySpace. Lenhart said younger teens, in particular, tend to stay away, some because they fail to meet a site's minimum age requirements.

Post-prom parties designed to promote safety

The latest fad is post-prom parties, a parent-generated concept to prevent tragedies from occurring to students left on their own after the annual proms.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Mandy St. Amand examines the trend:

Marketing experts get rich coming up with catch-phrases and slogans to get across a message. Culp, of the state police, said kids don't need a catchy slogan to understand that they shouldn't drink, and they certainly shouldn't drink and drive. As Culp put it: "They just need an adult to say, 'I love you and want you alive to live longer than me.'"

We can do that, can't we?

Judge violates student's right to post opinions on MySpace

A higher court has ruled that a judge was out of line when he placed a teenager on probation for writing obscene postings about the principal on MySpace:

The three-judge panel on Monday ordered the Putnam Circuit Court to set aside its penalty against the girl, referred to only as A.B. in court records.

"While we have little regard for A.B.'s use of vulgar epithets, we conclude that her overall message constitutes political speech," Judge Patricia Riley wrote in the 10-page opinion.

In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.

The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.