About 50 seventh-graders at Greene County’s DeBusk Elementary School on Friday became the first Tennessee public school students to begin receiving Internet safety lessons that one day might save their lives. 

Judy Collins, the school’s Title I technology and academic remediation specialist, will teach age-appropriate forms of the program to all DeBusk students in grades K-8 for the remainder of the year, DeBusk Principal Debra Jo Boles said.  She made the announcement during a Friday morning meeting with about 30 community leaders about the i-SAFE program. 

The meeting to brief community leaders, including Reps. David Hawk, R-5th, of Greeneville, and Eddie Yokley, D-11th, of Greene County, was held before the first class was presented to students. Others officials present included County Executive Roger Jones, Sheriff Steve Burns, Acting Greeneville Police Chief Mack Jones, County School Board Chairman Glenn Broyles and County School Board members Kathy Austin, Claude Weems Jr., and Bobby Wells. 

Dangers Stressed 
The “launch lesson” was presented by Kathleen Tucker, professional                 development manager for “i-SAFE,” a California-based non-profit foundation that is working to implement its Internet safety program for school children in all 50 states with the help of $5 million in federal funding.

Tucker, a former Southern California law officer, painted a stark picture of the threat to children and teens posed by Internet predators during her presentation to the community leaders. Millions of children and teens, Tucker said, now are “online,” having access to the Internet. Unfortunately, she said, with the growth in popularity of Internet communications mediums such as “instant messaging” and “chat rooms,” young people often don’t really know with whom they are     communicating over computer networks. Among those that unsuspecting children who enter Internet chat rooms may encounter are adult sexual predators pretending to be girls or boys and hiding their true identities behind “screen names.” The object of such predators, she said, is to befriend children and teens  and lure them to meet their new “friend” away from their homes, often with tragic consequences. 

Tucker illustrated the threat with case histories of abductions, rapes and murders carried out by Internet predators. In one case, she said, a 13-year-old girl from rural Texas was contacted via a chat room by a “friend” who claimed to be about her age and lived in the state of Washington. Within a month of first contact, the 13-year-old’s Internet friend, who actually was a 40-year-old man, had convinced her to come for a visit and even arranged for prepaid taxi service and a prepaid bus ticket to get her from Texas to Washington. In an effort to cover his tracks, the Internet predator had told the girl how to remove the “hard drive” (data storage) from her computer and had instructed her to bring it with her. After a bus ride of several days to Washington, the girl was met, not by the friend she expected, but by a 40-year-old man who held her captive and abused her sexually. She still had the computer part with her after she managed to escape her brutal captor long enough to call police for help. 

Murdered By Hate Group
In other cases cited, a 16-year-old Jewish youth was shot to death by members of a hate group after being lured to his death by a 20-year-old woman whom he met on the Internet. Luring the youth to his death had been part of the woman’s “initiation” into the hate group. 

In another incident cited by Tucker, a 13-year-old girl from rural New York State met via the Internet a 17-year-old boy from several towns away from her isolated farm home. When the boy hitchhiked to her home while her parents were away, Tucker said, he apparently became enraged at the girl because he believed she had provided inaccurate information about herself to him during the Internet communications. He then stabbed her to death and burned down her house.

Curriculum Offered 
To help students learn to avoid Internet entanglements with predators,Tucker said, the i-SAFE program offers a curriculum designed to: 
                 • empower students to recognize techniques used by predators to
                 deceive them; 
                 • empower students to refuse requests for personal information; 
                 • provide students with the tools they need to respond assertively; and
                 • encourage students to report suspicious or dangerous contacts. 

Tucker said parents need to be aware of whom their children are communicating with via the Internet. She said parents can prevent some problems by simply requiring computers to be placed in common areas of homes — not in children’s bedrooms. As an example of things to watch for, Tucker noted that, while checking out of her hotel on Friday morning, she had spoken to a woman who
told her that her son had more than 100 names on his Internet “buddy list.” Tucker said that it is likely that some of those “buddies” could turn out to be 40-year-old men hiding behind screen names.  “You should review those buddy lists and have your children explain who their buddies are,” she said.

She said “cyber predators” aren’t the only problem posed for families in general and children, in particular, via Internet communications. Identity theft, she said, is also a major problem, with Internet thieves sometimes targeting children to obtain personal and financial information about their parents. 

Yokley, Hawk Comment 
Rep.Yokley also raised the identity theft issue in comments to the audience, noting that he had just returned from hearings on that issue in Nashville. He said he was excited to learn about the i-SAFE program and asked how long it could take to be implemented statewide. Tucker responded that timing depended on how much support it received at the state level. Yokley pledged his support for the program and said he would try to put i-SAFE officials in contact with key state leaders. 

Rep. Hawk said he was “scared” by what he had heard on Friday. “We must do whatever is necessary to protect our children,” he said. 

Jenkins Sends Message
U.S. Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-1st, of Rogersville, had been scheduled to attend, but had to remain in Washington, D.C., for a rare Friday session of the U.S. House of Representatives, meeting organizers said. 

In a letter sent to DeBusk Principal Boles, Jenkins noted that Congress had been “highly supportive” of i-SAFE’s efforts.  “I am highly pleased that students, parents, teachers and administrators will have access to these comprehensive programs dealing with the multitude of issue presented by the Internet.” 

Jenkins’ letter also noted that while young people “can learn and accomplish by utilizing the Internet, they can also can come into contact with dangerous, destructive, and illegal activities on a daily basis.  “Computer viruses, pornography, intellectual property piracy, identity theft and cyber predators are just a few examples of the dangers that one can easily access through the Internet.” 

Community Effort Needed
Tucker told the community leaders Friday morning that, for an i-SAFE program to flourish in Greene County, a community effort would be required. “It’s clear that the schools and law enforcement can’t do this alone,” she said, before asking audience members to complete forms that asked if they were interested in helping direct and implement the i-SAFE program. 

Earlier, she had explained that the County Sheriff’s Department had agreed to have Deputy Sheriff Michelle Holt teach a law-enforcement-related section of the class work to DeBusk students. Holt is the school’s DARE (drug awareness and resistance education) officer. 

How Program Originated 
 Between the meeting with community leaders and the first i-SAFE class, DeBusk teacher Judy Collins explained that she learned about the i-SAFE program only about the time school opened this year. Thinking it sounded as though it could be applicable to Greene County, she approached school system officials with the idea of attempting to implement it as a pilot program at DeBusk Elementary this year.   “Dr. (Joe) Parkins (director of Greene County Schools) told me he would            sign the paperwork if I would agree to run with it (the program),” she said.

Collins said school surveys show that the number of DeBusk students who have access to the Internet at home has risen dramatically. The most recent survey indicated that 72 percent of the school’s students have access to the Internet from locations other than school. That, she said, shows there is a need for an Internet safety education. 

Parents Night Held
An i-SAFE parents night for DeBusk parents was held at the school on Thursday evening, according to Collins, who said about 15 “very interested” parents attended the one-hour meeting. “It wasn’t a large group, but they had very good questions,” she said. DeBusk Principal Boles said the Thursday evening meeting occurred during the DeBusk football team’s county championship game, a fact      that might have held down attendance somewhat.