The past few days have been disturbing to me as a teacher.

I have received two emails from a student that were vulgar, upsetting, and threatening. I have a feeling there will be more.

I know…it is summer. But my middle school kiddos still have their school email accounts and use them over the summer. Middle schoolers don’t have the forethought to use a different email account to send messages to people.

In my 25 years of teaching, I have NEVER had something like this come through any email account I have owned or used professionally. Now I know the feeling my students have when they see this type of personal attack.

Now it would be easy for me to just ignore it, let it go, and move on with my summer vacay. I cannot do that. This was a threat to my family and me. I have to go through the steps I have taught my students year after year. My principal has been contacted through email and I will be taking these emails to the police department. Even though these emails are ugly and hurtful, I will be hanging on to them until this gets resolved. Ugh!!! This is so not fun!!

Our students need help. It can’t be just the teachers who teach them life skills, coping skills, and being a part of their lives. As the adage says, “It takes a village to raise a child,” is more important than ever today. During the summer months, parents are working, kids are staying home alone, and with open access to the Internet, boredom turns into trouble. Kids find that hiding behind a screen makes them invincible and can say anything they want and their parents many times don’t even know they are doing it.

There are ways parents can keep tabs on their kiddos and keep them safe while away from them at.

1. Don’t give them a phone without parent controls. These devices were meant for ADULTS. It’s not a toy. Having an open phone with no parent controls is just asking for trouble for your preteen or teenager.
2. There are plenty of apps that parents can use to keep tabs on what your kids are doing on their phones. Many of these apps are FREE!! For example, with our teenage sons, we have Life360 to see where they are at any given time. There is even Bark! for parents to watch and flag anything your children are sending that is inappropriate.
3. Remember…you are the PARENT! Have rules with your children about using computers and phones and consequences if they break those rules. You can even make up a contract they have to sign and have ownership for their choices.
4. When using video game devices, help them create a new email account with Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, or other email account. DO NOT USE THEIR SCHOOL EMAIL!!!!

It takes a village to raise a child but it can’t be just left up to the teachers. I can teach my students how to be safe on the Internet, netiquette, and how to be kind while using devices. But I cannot do it alone. If our children are going to be kind citizens online, I have to be backed up at home. I have said this every year to each and every student that has walked into my classroom, “My wish, before I leave this earth, is to see that cyber-bullying is gone.” I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be a target.

*Edit* 7/31/21 This past week my husband and I had an investigator for our county take a look at our situation. He said that he had a conversation with the student and his mother and they said that they were hacked through his Xbox account and his school email was attached to it. The investigator was “confident” that is what happened and told me to let him know if I received any more emails of this type.

I am relieved my student wasn’t the one that sent the emails, but who did? It is a sick and twisted society that we live in that these types of emails and threats are being sent and they are getting away with it. I would love to come up with some sort of software or app that can easily trace these hacks so these people can be caught and prosecuted. If it is this bad now, how bad will it be for my future grandchildren?