BCSD temporarily blocks research platform for students due to concerns over access to sexually-themed content

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Complaints about a research platform have prompted the Berkeley County School District to temporarily block student access.

The district said it decided to make some changes to the program following a wave of complaints from parents.

“The Discus system is provided at the state level, and it is used for student research,” said Katie Tanner, chief communications officer for the district. “It is one of many platforms students utilize for research.”

According to the program’s website, the platform provides all South Carolinians with access to an electronic library of “essential information resources.” It’s basically a state library computer system that allows students to search for things within that network.

“We did have parents raise concerns specifically about the age-appropriates of content that was available to students. Parents had access to their students, and they were very concerned specifically about what they believed was age-inappropriate material with regard to sexual content and information concerning sexual content. This is a research platform, so it is presented in that mode, but there were legitimate concerns about what was available,” said Tanner.

Multiple parents reached out, complaining about things like news videos about sex shops, books on the history of smut, sex education stories, and journal entries about rape.

“When those concerns were brought to the district’s attention and they were investigated, we were able to confirm that those concerns were in fact, legitimate. In order to fully understand how expansive that is, and what are our steps to resolve that, we paused the student access to Discus at this time,” she explained.

Teachers can still access it.

One issue is there’s no way to filter certain content for older students only.

“In the district, we have filtered content through keywords and other mechanisms if you’re on our network, but with Discus, there is no ability right now in the way that it exists to filter content based on age. So, we have to be concerned about state regulations with sexual content,” said Tanner.

The Berkeley County School District is meeting with discuss officials to determine how they can put filters in place before deciding whether to turn the access for students back on.