Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

The Children’s Internet Protections Act (CIPA) is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet, on school and library computers. CIPA imposes certain types of requirements on any school or library that receives funding for Internet access or internal connections from the Erate program, a program that makes certain communications technology more affordable to eligible schools and libraries.

The Federal Communications Commission (Commission) added statutory language from the CIPA in the 21st Century Act regarding the education of students about appropriate online behavior to existing Commission rules (released in 2009) which enacted additional protections for minors using the Internet. Districts, ESDs and charter schools must certify, that as part of their required Electronic Communications policy, they are educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including cyberbullying awareness and response, and how to interact with other individuals on social networking sites and in chat rooms.

Refer to OSBA sample policy IIBGA - Electronic Communications System and administrative regulation, to meet the 2009 Commission rules. If the district has adopted the revisions from OSBA’s May 2009 Policy Update (Revision date 5/28/09), there is no new language revisions to meet the federal rules and regulations effective July 1, 2012.