Toronto-area mother claims son saw porn on school-issued computer
The Internet can be an amazing place to learn and play, but one parent found out the hard way that no one is immune from the depths of what the World Wide Web has to offer.
A mother was shocked to find out that her son, a Grade 5 student at Palermo Public School in Oakville, Ont., was able to watch a “hard-core” pornographic video on a school-issued laptop last week, CTV News reported.
The 10-year-old boy, whose school is located 48 kilometres southwest of Toronto, was reportedly playing a video game with a friend when the graphic images popped up on his computer screen and stayed there for about a minute. The mother, who wanted to keep her identity private, told CTV Toronto that her child didn’t understand what he was watching, but knew he would get in trouble for it.
“I was appalled,” she told the broadcaster, adding her son was crying when he revealed the incident to her. She contacted the school board to ask how her son could come across sexually-explicit content on a computer provided by a public school.
“Filtering is not 100 per cent effective for our schools,” Gordon Truffen, superintendent of education at the Halton District School Board, told CTV. The filter must be constantly updated with blocked websites to ensure graphic material isn’t accessible, he said.
The board is investigating the matter, but the mother said she remains befuddled by the fact that some people can’t even access YouTube at their workplace while her son was able to watch a porn clip.
She has had a long talk with her son about the video and the meaning behind it, according to the report. She added that she went public with the issue because she wants the board to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.
