UCPS Website Standards

  • Appropriate Content and Hosting Requirements

    1. All subject matter on your school web page and the sites it links to must relate to curriculum and instruction, school-authorized activities, or information about the school system and its mission, or schools within the district. Neither staff nor students may publish personal home pages as part of the school website, or homepages for other individuals or organizations not directly affiliated with the school system. Staff or student work may be published only as it relates to instruction or other school-sponsored activities.
    2. The principal and/or principal designee must approve the content of school home pages. The principal is to ensure that the school’s web content is current, appropriate and adheres to these guidelines.
    3. All communications via the UCPS school websites will have no offensive content. This includes religious, racial and sexual harassment, violence and profanity.
    4. Official school home pages must be hosted on the UCPS web servers or those designated by the UCPS Communications Office.
    5. Sites hosted on servers other than the UCPS web server or those designated by UCPS must state that the site is an unofficial site and that Union County Public Schools is not responsible for the content of the site. This includes sites maintained by booster clubs, PTO's etc. that are not hosted by UCPS. Exceptions to this are teacher web pages which should be created in an approved Learning Management System (LMS), Google Sites, or other locations approved by the UCPS Instructional Technology staff.
    6. No advertising of any type is allowed on official school web pages.
    7. No games or links to games may be included in your site unless the game specifically relates to the curriculum.
    8. Large files such as video and audio files must be approved by the Communications Office prior to being included on school websites to ensure that available bandwidth is not overly congested and that the media is accessible.
    9. The principal will designate one or more staff members from each school to be responsible for posting/changing the school’s web pages as needed.

    Student and Staff Safety

    1. Images and full names of minor students may only be used when a specific written release form has been signed by a parent or legal guardian. A copy of the release form is to be kept on file at the school or department. Download Release Form or the (Español version)
    2. Images of adult students may only be used with their specific written permission.
    3. Personal information, home addresses or telephone number of students and staff may not be listed.
    4. Email addresses should only be obtained from the UCPS Employee Directory and should not be on any school web page. Email addresses of students shall not be on any web page. Email addresses of others like PTO/PTA leadership, school site-based committee volunteers, etc. may be published on school web pages, but UCPS will not be responsible for SPAM generated to these emails.

    Copyright Compliance

    1. Students and staff are to follow copyright laws when publishing web pages. Because the extent of copyright protection of certain works found on the Internet is unclear, staff will always request permission from the holder of the work if use of the material has the potential of being considered an infringement.
    2. Teachers will instruct students to respect copyright and to request permission to create links or reproduce a work.
    3. Citations will be given for the source of linked materials.