Common Sense Media awards districts with a special recognition based on their work to promote digital citizenship. For Fullerton School District, this includes the teaching of specific lessons for digital citizenship and online safety that are required every year at every grade level, as well as other efforts to engage and inform families about best practices for healthy online behavior. 

Your student is taking part in classroom lessons from Common Sense Education’s K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, designed to educate and guide young people to harness the power of the Internet and digital tools so they can become safe, responsible, and respectful digital citizens.

Digital media and technology is evolving at a rapid pace, bringing with it amazing opportunities as well as real risks for our children. On the positive side, young people are using the Internet and mobile technologies to create, connect, explore and learn in ways never before imagined. Challenges from harmful behaviors, cyberbullying to digital cheating, are surfacing in schools and in homes across the country. Young people face ethical challenges daily without a roadmap to guide them.

The core message of the curriculum is one of empowerment: With powerful digital tools that allow for creation and communication comes great responsibility. The curriculum centers on 8 main categories based on the digital ethics research of Dr. Howard Gardner and The GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.