What is your AUP's reading level?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 01:37PM We advise kids never to sign something they've not read or do not understand. But then we demand they do just that.
It's always troubled me that students are expected to know, understand and follow our district's board adopted Internet Acceptable Use Policy despite it being far above most students' (and most probably many parents') reading levels. I checked - Policy 524 comes in at a 12.0 grade reading level according to the readability engine in Word.
I've never figured out exactly what to about this situation. Restricting Internet use only those students who could read at 12th grade reading level never seemed an option.
So I was pleased to see that one of our middle school library media specialists, Cindy Pischner, created a simplified version of the district AUP for kids and parents to sign.
OK, Word still says it is at a 12.0 reading level, but at least it's one page instead of eight pages long and looks more accessible. It hits the important parts of the official policy and includes a link back to it.
How does your school deal with students expected to sign an agreement that they may well not understand?
Reader Comments (2)
Our board deals with that issue in the same way it deals with documents being sent home in English to families who don't read English... it ignores the problem.
I think you've raised an excellent point and I'm embarrassed to admit that I never stopped to consider that some of our parents might not understand the AUP. I always go over it with the students, getting them to paraphrase it before they take it home for a signature, but as soon as I get to school tomorrow, I'm going to check out the readability level of our AUP.
@ Janice,
Good luck checking the readability. I am not sure how accurate the tool in Word is in evaluating the reading level, but it does point out that some documents may be difficult for many to comprehend.
Maybe we should be creating podcasts????
All the best,
Doug