Stewarts Creek Elementary Recognized for Online Safety Initiative

Stewarts Creek Elementary School has been recognized as a “Common Sense School,” one of the first in Rutherford County.

Common Sense is a national non-profit with a mission to help kids and families navigate media and technology while keeping themselves safe.

“We applaud the faculty and staff of Stewarts Creek Elementary for embracing digital citizenship as an important part of their student’ education,” said Liz Kline, vice president of education programs at Common Sense Education. “Stewarts Creek deserves high praise for giving its students the foundational skills they need to compete and succeed in the 21st-century workplace and participate ethically insociety at large.”

Common Sense provides digital citizenship resources for schools, which are then used to teach students and parents internet safety, personal privacy, media balance, and other values related to their online activities.

“At SCE, we believe in preparing our students for their lives today, and for their future,” said Jill Hines, Instructional Coach at Stewarts Creek Elementary. “The internet plays a role in the daily routine of our children, so the need to teach internet safety is imperative.”

With platforms like Tik-Tok, Twitter and Instagram becoming more inherent in the lives of students across the nation, education platforms like Common Sense offer schools’ valuable resources to help promote education and strategy to better students’ lives.

The best part: it’s free.

“Students learn how to handle cyberbullying, as well as ways to be aware of their screen time, and balance their digital lives with everyday life, not only helps our students right now, but will also help them in the future,” Hines said.

Schools must meet multiple criteria to be named a Common Sense School, including professional development for educators, family engagement sessions and required lessons across all grade levels. Lessons teach students how to appropriately maintain an online identity.

“This year, our lessons focused on how to combat cyberbullying and other inappropriate online behavior, and how to balance media in their life,” said Hines.

According to the Common Sense website, the curriculum was originally developed as part of Project Zero, a research-based curriculum development project led by Howard Gardner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“We’re honored to be recognized as a Common Sense School,” said Tina Turner, principal of Stewarts Creek Elementary. “By preparing our students to use technology safely and responsibly, we are providing them an opportunity to build lifelong habits to help them succeed in a tech-driven world.”

For more information about Common Sense, parents can visit www.commonsense.org.