The administration at Cameron County High School is cracking down on inappropriate use of the internet, installing new technology to limit what students can do when they're online.

Access to email, chat rooms and other non-educational activities are being curtailed. Some web content is also being blocked.

Technology Coordinator Sandy Shields said the new security measures are designed to place reasonable limits on student web use.

New "Websense" software screens websites that may contain inappropriate material and prevents users from accessing those sites.

Cameron County High School has opted for a filtering capability that blocks content falling into six categories: adult, race/hate, violence, tasteless material, gambling and inappropriate content.

The programming is not perfect -- it's likely to occasionally block sites that have a legitimate educational purpose. To address this dilemma, students can seek "quota time" for access to certain websites for a limited amount of time.

Shields reports that the newer version of Websense has been installed in all of the school's computers. She said several other Pennsylvania school districts use the same filtering software, which also provides the district's computers with better networking capabilities.

The school initially began using an older version of Websense two years ago, in response to abuse of internet access privileges.

High school students completed internet access forms at the beginning of the school year as a condition for using the internet for research. These forms stated that using school computers to access certain content could be a breach of school policy, and possibly a criminal offense.