RULES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR USES OF EMAIL PROVIDED BY THE SMITHFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS

This policy is adopted in addition to, and not as a substitute for, the School District's Acceptable Use Policy, which governs the use of the school district's technological resources. The rules and responsibilities for users of electronic mail (email) provided to the staff of Smithfield Public Schools applies to all district employees, interns, contractors and all other users of district email systems. Email systems include any email address provided by the District of Smithfield to a user.

This policy is designed to:

1. reinforce that existing standards and policies regarding professional conduct also apply to computer usage,

2. ensure that district employees use information technology resources in an efficient and effective manner,

3. protect district data and computer systems from intentional misuse,

4. and ensure that district data and records are professionally managed.

Ethics and Professional Conduct

Users shall:

• • use email to communicate for business purposes,

  • check email regularly (generally daily), and

  • identify themselves in a professional manner.

Users shall not:

• • send threatening, harassing, demeaning, obscene, profane or otherwise offensive messages,

  • conceal or misrepresent their identity in a message,

  • use email for political, profit or illegal activities, or

  • use the email system following termination of employment.

Personal use of email is permissible provided it does not:

• • interfere with work responsibilities,

  • promote political, religious, profit making business, or

  • increase district costs.

Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness

Users shall not:

• • send chain mail, "spam" or otherwise wasteful email,

  • send attachments which overload the network,

  • intentionally send viruses, worms or other applications or files that overload or otherwise jeopardize the integrity of the system.

Security and Privacy

Users shall:

• • understand that anything transmitted over the Internet is subject to interception, reading, copying, or modifying by others.

Users shall not:

• • use email to release information to third parties without written or policy approval,

  • have any expectation of privacy while using email, or

  • use another person’s email account without authorization by the Director of Technology and the Superintendent of Schools.

Information Access and Retention

Users shall regularly:

• • remove personal messages and attachments,

  • regularly transfer messages of official record to an organized, secure, and accessible filing system. This may include coordination with agency records officer(s) to ensure records retention requirements are met.

  • And remove other messages which are not part of an official record.

Compliance

Email users will be held accountable for any breaches of policy, security or confidentiality resulting from the use of this technology. Reports of misconduct will be brought to the attention of the appropriate administrator and central office staff as necessary for corrective action. Minor transgressions will be handled at the lowest possible level. Incidents that involve ethical, security or privacy issues or are disruptive to a large user-group must be reports to the Superintendent and the Director of Technology.

The district reserves the right to examine email for system performance monitoring and to investigate potential abuse of the District's information technology resources.

CROSS REFERENCES: District Acceptable Use Policy

ADOPTED: August 19, 2019