The only thing Paly Japanese teacher Teruko Kamikihara wanted to do was prepare a lesson involving a Web site about sumo wrestlers. However, when Kamikihara tried to view the Web site, she encountered a warning message telling her that the Web site was blocked as pornography.

“The Web site was part of an exercise we do every year in Japanese four and five,” Kamikihara said.

For Kamikihara, the blocking of the sumo wrestling Web site was not an issue.

“The Web site was blocked, but I emailed it to the district and they fixed it that day,” Kamikihara said. “I plan lessons a few weeks ahead so it didn’t affect the class.”

This inconvenience was the result of an Internet filter activated by the technical staff of the Palo Alto Unified School District on March 15 on the district computer network. The unpublicized move received little attention.

"I know is that a filter exists, but not much beyond that," said senior John Schairer. "The school certainly has a legal right to do so. I don’t really think this is an issue."

According to Marie Scigliano, the district director of technology, the district office maintains the filter, which is still in the testing phase.

“We’re evaluating how it works and how it affects the user experience,” Scigliano said. “The filter is on the district server, so the entire district has the same restrictions and opportunities.”

According to Scigliano, the district purchased a network-monitoring server several years ago with Lightspeed System’s Total Traffic Control software package, and the filter was a part of the software on the server. The ability to use the filter included in the package was not a primary consideration in the purchase of the software.

“The district purchased a server box to assist with network monitoring and allocating resources that came with the software,” Scigliano said. “There was no additional cost to the district [for the filter]. We always had the capability for content filtering, but never turned it on.”

According to Lightspeed Systems’ representative John Genter, the server software puts Web sites into categories that the district can filter at its discretion.

“Total Traffic Control provides categorization of Web sites, with 115 categories total,” Genter said. “We provide data on Web sites to PAUSD on a nightly basis. Each district chooses what categories to allow or not allow on its computers. Within each category, the district can choose specific domains to allow or block.”

However, senior Naomi Shiffman objects to the notion of the district having the ability to filter out specific websites.

"I don’t condone looking at pornography and think it’s a horrible thing," Shiffman said. "But I object to the principle of them having the power to censor what we view. It shows a deep distrust of the student body by our superiors."

Bennett Haselton of Peacefire.org, an anti-filtering organization that has conducted extensive research on several high profile filters, says that filtering software can go too far.

“The controversy over blocking software does not center on… sites accidentally blocked by blocking software programs,” according to Haselton’s Web site. “However, the controversy centers on sites that are blocked not accidentally but deliberately.”

While supporting filtering, Melissa Caswell, PTA Council President, says that filtering software is not the only strategy the district should pursue for protecting students.

“The honor system won’t work with little kids when trying to keep them safe on the Internet,” Caswell said. “We don’t have certain books with scary things in them in the school libraries, and it would be silly to allow access to them on a computer. However, we realize that filtering is not the be-all-end-all solution. It would be naïve for us to think that we could protect children by simply banning Web sites.”

Currently, PAUSD is only filtering Web sites in the “pornography” category. However, the filter also blocks non-pornographic Web sites.

“If a Web site gets [wrongly] blocked, the user can submit a request to the district, which reviews the request,” Scigliano said. “Between March 15 and April 15, we evaluated around 110 requests. We unblocked about 60% of them, and 40% were left blocked.”

However, according to Haselton, in general there are too many erroneously filtered Web sites for a reviewing system to unblock all of the Web sites.

“The set of mis-categorized sites is a constantly moving target, so even if you were to do nothing else all day but unblock sites, you’d never make much of a dent in the error rate,” Haselton said.

On May 4, 2006, the filter blocked an attempt by The Paly Voice to access the Lesbian Herstory Archives, a Web site maintained by the Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, “an organization to save and display historical information” about lesbians. The Paly Voice submitted a request to unblock the Web site at the same time. By May 8, 2006, the filter was no longer blocking the Web site.

According to Scigliano, the filtering is a part of an initiative to protect children from harmful content on the Internet.

“Discussions on the filter began at the beginning of the calendar year,” Scigliano said. “There was a growing concern from parents about protecting children from pornography, as well as some deliberate access [by children] to pornographic Web sites.”

AP US History teacher Jack Bungarden witnessed an incident of students viewing pornography when substitute teaching at the Sequoia Union School District.

"One day I went to the computer lab with a question," Bungarden said. "When I was walking by I saw some kids looking at a site based on bestiality. It seems to me that the school has an obligation to keep inappropriate material out of the computers. In a school setting a filter is appropriate."

According to Caswell, there were several instances of children at elementary schools accidentally viewing pornography.

“Some parents contacted me about things that their kids had seen that were scary,” Caswell said. “Both the PTA presidents and the PTA Council encouraged me to talk to the superintendent’s office about it.”

The PTA brought the issue of filters before the district in February, according to Scigliano.

“In February we had more formal discussions [than the ones held at the beginning of the calendar year],” Scigliano said. “The representative of the PTA Executive Council talked with the district about installing filters.”

According to school board member Camille Townsend, the school board was not directly involved in the decision to install Internet filters.

“The school board does not give much direction in the day to day operations of the district,” Townsend said. “The staff has a fair amount of latitude. The staff probably thought there was room within district policy to take action based on community concerns.”

When the district office finally enabled the filter, the district office informed various officials within the schools, but not the general student body or the teachers.

“We sent out an email to all of the principals, tech people, librarians and administrators in the district,” Scigliano said. “We have not yet made an announcement to the student body because we are still in the testing phase.”

According to Scigliano, the district wishes to assess whether the filter was appropriate for the district. The district will make an official announcement at the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, Scigliano said.