In early March, the San Mateo Union High School District blocked Discord and various other websites on the school Wi-Fi.
“We have a content filter in place [that] requires us to follow laws … such as the Children Internet Protection Act,” said SMUHSD director of technology Simon Bettis. “And to comply [with] that, we must have a filter in place to block inappropriate, disruptive, high-bandwidth and questionable websites.”
Many students felt the ban really aimed at decreasing distractions in class, sparking frustration.
“[The district] blocked these websites because students get distracted in class,” said sophomore Katy Yu. “[But] I disagree with what they think … in the real world, they can’t block everything you do, so that’s why in high school, [students] should learn self-discipline.”
Many students claimed that added restrictions to the school internet are pointless and don’t resolve the problem of short attention spans, as people have found other methods to communicate with their peers.
“Everyone just started using Google Docs to talk,” Katy Yu said. “You can’t even prevent this, [students are] just gonna find alternative ways.”
Besides shifting to other platforms, other students decided to bypass these Wi-Fi restrictions directly by encrypting their internet traffic.
“The stricter their rules [are], the more students want to break them,” said sophomore Janelle Hu. “I know many people [started] using VPNs.”
Junior Paul Yu pointed out that the school should find students alternative solutions to websites they block, such as Discord.
“If they [banned] Discord, they should provide another school-approved tool for students to communicate,” Paul Yu said. “And they should do a survey [to understand] the need for Discord and how important it is for students to use [Discord for] their projects and activities.”
The block has also created academic inconveniences for students.
“[Discord is] an easy way to talk in between classes [or] if there’s something important,” said sophomore Ethan Chang. “It’s [also] easier to coordinate stuff for big projects.”
Aragon Robotics heavily relies on Discord to help them communicate between teams. Since the recent blocking of Discord, communication between those groups has gotten harder.
“[When] Discord got blocked, it [got] really hard for the [robotics] conversation to go on,” said sophomore Tiffany Wang. “We share a lot of documents [and] files. Also, [since] there are several different [groups] for robotics … people discuss [various] problems regarding the compositions [and] projects.”
However, teachers and school administrators were more supportive in the decision to block Discord, and they took a major part in the decision-making process.
“We work with [Aragon’s] school administrators to make sure that websites are being blocked appropriately,” said Bettis. “Discord was a collaborative work with the school site administrator. They decided that the site was not appropriate for students to be accessing.”
While the administration and the technology department are unsure if Discord and other recently blocked websites will return anytime soon, students are able to appeal these blocks.
“The main justification [for] block[ing] certain sites is to protect students and support learning,” Bettis said. “If any group out there feels like a website is appropriate and needs to be reviewed, I would bring [that] up to the school administrators.”
Students can email help@smuhsd.org with URLs and relevant information to submit ban appeals for any websites.
