October 2018 - video

Portrait of a Fremont Graduate - Digital Citizenship

In last month’s message, I introduced you to our district-wide project called "Portrait of a Fremont Graduate". Since then, many schools, parent organizations, and community groups have participated in consensus-building exercises and submitted their collective comments and visual representations to my office. The ideas have been inspiring and show great commitment to our students now and investment in their futures. We look forward to collecting more data from the outreach sessions during the next two months.

Part of doing this project is to help us envision the kind of world we want our young people to be a part of, while also recognizing that they are growing up in a very different time.

Portrait of a Fremont Graduate

Consider this-- students today have never lived without the internet where information changes rapidly, news spreads virally, and social media defines our relationships. Negotiating this territory is often trial and error, since we have few past models to rely upon.

Trial and error using social media can be especially high stakes. A student’s careless online comments or immature video post can leave an everlasting footprint that negatively affects their college or job prospects. “Digital drama” outside of school can spill into the classroom and impact focus and learning. Screen-time, nonstop connectivity, and technology addiction is an increasing concern for many families as well. In light of this, how do we best guide our youth in making healthy decisions and becoming good digital citizens?

Thankfully, we have the support of our community to provide us direction in these uncharted waters. FUSD received a generous donation of $20,000 from the Fremont Unified Student Store, or (FUSS), which we are using to create a series of four unique parent nights throughout the year on media-related topics, raising awareness of online trends, and helping our kids successfully navigate the world they currently live in--and will one day run. Information with dates and details will be sent through school newsletters and posted online. We hope to see you all at these workshops as we work together on developing this key aspect of our “Fremont Grads”.