YouTube Blocked on Student Computers

The school district temporarily blocked YouTube and Pinterest on student’s school-issued computers Tuesday, causing an uproar among students.

The sites were blocked in reaction to a parent complaint, Superintendent Dr. Dana Bedden said in an email sent out to the BASH community Wednesday.

“It was brought to our attention by a parent that inappropriate content was accessible using these two websites/application,” he said.

He said temporary ban is necessary because the school does not currently have the ability to block YouTube or Pinterest content based off tagging or categories. It is trying to find a way to do that.

“While we have a few possible solutions to resolve this issue it will take some time to test and verify its success,” Dr. Bedden said.  

Some students said they did not like that YouTube was stripped without warning and said the ban made no sense because many teachers use YouTube in class or to aide with homework.

“It’s simply not fair,” Senior Bryan Martignetti said. “The school barely tells us what’s going on in the first place; now they are taking away a useful learning source for not just me, but my fellow classmates.”

Social Studies Teacher Mr.Steven Bleiler said he did not think not having YouTube would interrupt learning, especially since it was only a temporary ban. Teachers still have access to YouTube.

“It could lead to some classroom problems in the near-future,” he said, “but considering it’s a temporary ban, I don’t see this becoming a huge blockade in BASH’s teaching ability.”

Senior Quincy Coleman said he does not understand why YouTube had to be banned for everyone, especially when it was not been a problem over the past few years.

“Just because some immature kid wants to look up stuff he’s not supposed to be, it’s now everyone’s punishment, which really doesn’t make much sense,” he said.

Others point out that social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can expose just as much, if not more inappropriate content to the BASH community.

“There are more sites that have posts everyday that are worse than YouTube,” Senior Ayesha Hashamy said.