The Broadalbin-Perth Central School District recently learned that the former Intermediate School and The Learning Community (now Broadalbin-Perth Elementary School) received Common Sense Digital Citizenship Certification for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, and several individuals earned the title of “Common Sense Educator.” The badges of honor were earned under the direction of the district’s instructional technology coach, Allison Renda.
In order to earn Common Sense recognition, educators must take a community approach to implement digital citizenship and teach students to be safe, respectful and responsible when using an electronic device. Digital citizenship helps to prepare students to think critically and use technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate while preparing them for the perils that exist in the online realm, such as plagiarism, loss of privacy, cyberbullying, media literacy and analyzing news sources to assess the accuracy of the media they consume.
“The Internet is a powerful tool that helps teachers and students break down the four walls in the classroom and reach never-ending boundaries safely, respectfully and responsibly,” Renda said. “Digital Citizenship goes beyond cyberbullying and keeping our information private — it dives deep into media literacy and media balance as well. It has always been vital for students to be digital citizenship leaders, but even more so now that much of their learning is done online.”
In addition to the school recognition, the following individuals earned the “Common Sense Educator” title: Lisa Caughey, Jen Cetnar, Kristin Forest, Allison Renda, Ed Szumowski, Amanda Ferraro, Jill Becker, Tammy Staie, Flo Glasser, Ingrid Hodgins, Emily Zimmerman, Rebecca Gregory, Melanie Hampton, and Amy Schaffer.
“This certification was a big undertaking that required a lot of hard work and commitment from our educators,” Superintendent Stephen Tomlinson said. “I want to commend them for their dedication to this initiative and their willingness to do ‘extra’ in order to afford more opportunities to our students. None of it would be possible without the tenacious leadership of Allison Renda. She is a valued team member at B-P and we are lucky to have her. She is constantly raising the bar for our district in the field of technology and her work helps our district be an innovative leader.”
Common Sense Education supports K-12 schools with free, timely, and research-based resources for teaching in the digital age. The K-12 Common Sense curriculum is used in classrooms across all 50 states, in more than 80,000 schools by more than 1,00,000 educators. To learn more about the criteria that Broadalbin-Perth Central School District met to become recognized as a Common Sense School, visit https://www.commonsense.org/education/recognition-schools.