5.9.2 Electronic Communication and Supervision Policy

POLICY TYPE: 5.0 Educational Program Policies \ 5.9 Using Technology in Learning
EFFECTIVE DATE: 2018-10-24	LAST REVISED: 2025-08-14
THIS POLICY APPLIES TO: Contractors – Individuals engaged to provide services under a contract with SelfDesign Learning Foundation Support Providers – Individuals engaged under a contract or agreement with SelfDesign Learning Foundation to provide services for a specific learner Families – Learners and parents(s)/guardian(s) of learners participating in SelfDesign Learning Foundation’s programs Volunteers – Individuals providing goods/services under the terms of an agreement with SelfDesign Learning Foundation Board Members – Members of the Board of Directors for SelfDesign Learning Foundation and the Foundation for SelfDesign (FSD)

Policy Statement

SelfDesign Learning Foundation (SDLF) is committed to the safe and responsible use of their technology systems.

Definitions

Cross-posting – the posting of a message, link, image, etc., to more than one online location

Policy

SelfDesign Learning Foundation (SDLF) will require all learners and their parents/guardians in the SelfDesign Learning Community and HomeLearners Network to use acceptable conduct during community participation. SDLF expects learners and their parents/guardians to:

Use respectful and positive language.
Have a willingness to listen and encourage deep conversation.
Be respectful of the rights and sensibilities of other people (behaviour which breaches the B.C. Human Rights Code and Federal hate laws, as well as the SDLF policy on an Environment of Safety, Acceptance and Respect, including: sexually explicit language, pornography, copyrighted material, swearing and violence oriented language are not acceptable.).
When discussing identifiable individuals in the learning environment, ensure that only those who are authorized to view this information are included at all times.
Avoid of the use of sarcasm.
Not use terms that denigrate other’s ideas such as calling them stupid or ridiculous.
Be respectful of children and their sensibilities.
Be considerate and inclusive.

SDLF expects learners and their parents/guardians to not:

Use abusive, vulgar, profane, obscene, harassing, or other inappropriate language.
Share images or videos containing nudity, sexual content or inappropriate language.
Criticize the spelling, writing or keyboarding of others.
Re-post personal electronic mail received to forums (i.e., Google Groups or other social media sites) without the permission of the author.
Reveal anyone else’s personal address, phone number, or picture without parental consent.
Use network access for business purposes or anything else not related to the individual’s position in the SelfDesign Learning Community and SelfDesign HomeLearners Network.
Share login identifiers, passwords, and credentials or distribute or use anyone else’s credentials to access the SDLF systems*.

* SDLF recognizes that within the context of our educational and support programs, account sharing or supervised access may occasionally be necessary to facilitate learning and provide appropriate educational support for learners.

Specific Provisions and Exceptions

Family Accounts and Shared Access within the Household

For families and learners, account sharing is permitted within an immediate household for the purpose of supporting the learner’s education.
Parents and guardians may assist learners with login and platform navigation, provided this access is supervised and limited to household members.

Education Assistants, Support Providers and Learning Centres

In situations where parents/guardian wishes to authorize an education assistant, support provider or learning centre staff (third-party provider) to access a learner’s account on their behalf, SDLF requires:

Annual written authorization from the parent/guardian, specifying the provider and scope of access.
Provider Agreement to SDLF Security and Privacy Policies: The third-party provider must review, acknowledge, and adhere to all relevant SDLF policies, including safeguarding credentials, respecting confidentiality, and following platform usage rules.
Accountability: The authorized provider assumes responsibility for all activity conducted during their access. Improper use or violations of this policy may result in access revocation and notification to the parents/guardian.

Audit and Revocation

SDLF reserves the right to audit such accounts and to revoke provider/third-party access at any time if there is concern about misuse, security, or privacy breaches.

Annual Review and Renewal

Parents/guardians must renew their authorization annually for continued provider access. Lapsed authorizations result in suspension of provider access until proper documentation is received.

Protocol

Using SelfDesign systems

SDLF stores all communications between learners and educators in the learning platform. Parents/guardians of K-9 learners should oversee all communications. SDLF administration monitors communications to ensure accountability. SDLF provides use of video meeting software for face-to-face communications. All users of the video meeting software are responsible to adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy.

Learners and parents/guardians must agree in the Program Agreements to use SDLF’s systems appropriately.

How to acceptably use SDLF systems:

Sign in using your own ID so that people will know who is online, who has posted messages and email, and with whom they are chatting.
Consider the relevance of your message to the topic of the discussion forum/space before posting.
Within discussion spaces/forums, try to keep your posts relevant to the subject thread. If you want to change the subject, start a new thread by changing the subject line. If you want to reply to a post in a current thread, choose one of the reply options from the message menu.
Refrain from cross-posting.
Refrain from including personal information in the subject line of any message.
When replying to a message, please quote all or part of the message to which you are replying so others can understand your response.
It is important to remember that without facial expression and voice tone to accompany words, it is easy to misinterpret the meaning of someone else’s posts and to miscommunicate when you write. Attempt to write enough in your message that others will understand what you are talking about.
Please post a reader-friendly biographical sketch of yourself in profile and account information in the various platforms so that people can know a little about who you are (note this is not mandatory).
Content in any discussion spaces/forums within SDLF is considered to be exclusive to SDLF. If you wish to copy, print or send out work to others, please ask for permission from the writer and respect their wishes. Also ensure that the communication does not contain any other third party personal information that the intended recipient is not authorized to view.
Content in SDLF discussion spaces/forums is private. Please do not post people’s comments outside of spaces/forums unless you have obtained specific permission to do so.
When responding to or quoting another person, unless you have their permission, please post only to discussion spaces/forums in which the writer originally posted.

SDLF cannot be responsible for postings/conversations that occur through private mail outside of SDLF discussion spaces/forums, through outside chat groups, social media platforms etc. We recommend that parents/guardians be aware of the internet environments in which their children are posting.

Reporting a breach of the guidelines

If you discover something that may represent a breach of the guidelines for appropriate use as outlined in this policy (such as objectionable language in conferences or in chats or feeling offended by someone else’s behaviour), you may respond directly to the poster in a conference or email them privately and if you wish, send a copy to the school principal or vice principal. It is helpful to provide a sample of the communication or direct quotes. If you do not wish to contact the poster directly, you may send a message to the school principal or vice principal for consideration. SDLF will investigate the concern and report on the progress of the investigation.