FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)
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Welcome to Voices, a national award-winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District.
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Jeff Krakoff: This is Jeff Krakoff. Today, our guests are Jason Young and Chris Miller. Jason Young is school resource officer and safety and security manager. And Chris is a police officer with Jackson Township and the SRO at the Senior High School. Welcome, gentlemen. Today we want to talk about technology, right. Technology can be really good. Lots of benefits. But there's also another side of that story. And there are a lot of dangers involved with technology. So what I want to ask you two about what are you seeing specifically with Seneca Valley and with other school districts around the region? What kinds of things are we dealing with when we talk about danger concerning a digital footprint and online security? So, Officer Young, I know that there is an upcoming event called "The Dangers of Tech." Can you tell us what that's all about?
00:01:11:28 - 00:01:52:17
Jason Young: Sure. So the upcoming event will cover current online trends that we see our students that are involved with. We know that there's they're no longer using Facebook. They're using other platforms Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok. And every day those platforms change. And this event is to educate students. Um. About how they share things unintentionally and the predators that are out there who basically make a career out of going after these students and exploiting them.
00:01:53:10 - 00:02:06:11
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So Officer, you mentioned students how they might be exploited. For any parents that are going to be attending the event. What kinds of things can they expect to hear that would be of most interest to them?
00:02:07:12 - 00:02:58:06
Jason Young: So what they're going to hear is from the FBI. They're going to hear the true facts rather than, you know, when we think of the Internet having true facts, this is going to be from the experts. We're going to hear how probably almost every student has had some sort of a contact with a predator and may have not known it. Um, especially females are preyed upon a lot. Um, even if you think you know your child, you know that they're not. You may know them, and you may think you know them, but they might have an alternate personality online. And we need to make our kids feel comfortable with talking about it rather than making them feel like that it's, you know, they're committing a crime. We want them to feel comfortable talking about it before things get out of hand.
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Jeff Krakoff: Right. Right. Okay. Officer Miller, when we're talking about online safety, you know, what are some examples of some things that schools and communities in our area are struggling with right now?
00:03:11:00 - 00:05:07:00
Chris Miller: Well, specifically in the region here, and I'll focus on in our district right now for a minute, um, over the course of the last two years, I've been in this position, we've done classes with the grades here and I focus mainly in the seventh and eighth grade building, um, on digital citizenship, your digital footprint, online predators and cyber bullying. One of the biggest issues and I believe the FBI will address it, is what's called sextortion. And this is an issue that is not that is common in every district amongst all ages of kids that have access to the Internet where they will be preyed upon by unknown users to solicit and send images. And then as a result of that, the kids can get themselves in a situation where they're paying an unknown source because they're being threatened. That is a very serious and probably the biggest issue that the kids these days have to worry about. One of the reasons that I think it's important that parents attend this your kids are online with these devices all the time. They are very savvy with them as parents were busy. We're not paying attention. We're not as engaged a lot of time on social media. And the FBI does that and can give parents some insight on what to look for, what to check on your on your on your kid's phone, how to set up passwords or how to set up safe accounts, how to teach your kids how to safely navigate Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or TikTok. Um, being, you know, being able to look for, you know, not, not adding mutual, not adding friends you don't know, just mutual friends that can be a fake person, things like that. That is a very in terms of the districts in the area that is a very common issue in in the Pittsburgh area for sure.
00:05:07:22 - 00:05:46:27
Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So, when I think about the dangers of social media and other digital platforms, you know, and think about my own children, there seems to be this level of trust. You know, somebody says there's somebody and something, so it must be true. That's got to be a huge issue, right, with people not being honest. And the other thing is, you know, how much of it is kids today just oversharing, what they're doing, where they are, you know, who they're related to. Uh, can we just talk about just some of the very high-level things that you think are big problems when it comes to digital?
00:05:47:09 - 00:06:56:13
Chris Miller: Something the kids and this is something that is done we focused a little bit on in the online predators class with the eighth grade students with Miss Kotula over in the library. Um, something simple. And I'm not this isn't I'm not trying to scare kids or anything, but something as simple as posting a public having your, your profile, public, simple things like that give information unknowingly to people that want to be out there to do you harm. Um, you know, photographs of your location in front of your house. We see this. This is a common thing. You see now as parents posting pictures with their kids, holding up cards like first day of kindergarten, you know, third grade Miss so-and-so's class. You know, I like this. I like that. My favorite sport or my favorite. That's all information that is now out there that's public, especially if you're accounts not private. Um, and that's something that we focus on and see a lot of these kids, you know posting things and giving up information about their locations unknowingly, you know, simple things like sweatshirts with identifying marks on them or your house or your address and putting it out there online is accessible to a lot of people.
00:06:56:15 - 00:07:22:18
Jeff Krakoff: Yeah. Or even for parents. I remember reading an article where people love the post, I'm on vacation that's telling potential burglars your house is open this week. You're not there. Yeah, I know we're focusing on students right now, but are there any best practices for any parents listening to this that may not be as engaged digitally and on social media that they may want to pay attention to?
00:07:22:25 - 00:08:23:25
Chris Miller: We try to stress that we're not demonizing social media. It has positives and it has negatives. And for parents unfamiliar with navigating social media, simply talk to your talk to your kids. Ask them what apps they're on or what they're using. Um, who are your friends? You know, is your account private? Is it public? You know, are you adding people you don't know or you've never met before in life? Um, simple things like that. Gaining trust with your kid and having passwords shared with them so you have access to it. It's something that thinks reasonable for a kid to comply with a parent, a request like that, so that you can see what they're doing. They might not they might be engaging with someone that a parent might pick up on as this is suspicious. But the child won't just because of their level of maturity. So things like things like that, simple things can make it easier and safer for them.
00:08:24:00 - 00:08:33:20
Jeff Krakoff: Great tips. So, Officer Young, we were talking about the event, "The Dangers of Tech," but we really didn't get into when and where that will be. What are the details?
00:08:34:24 - 00:09:17:01
Jason Young: So it will be at the Seneca Valley Senior High School Auditorium, and that will be Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m., April 27th. So it'll be Thursday, April 27th at 6:30 p.m. at the auditorium. The event is free and you do not have to reserve or, you know, call ahead of time. We would caution that some of the information presented may not be suitable for younger kids or younger children because we are going to be talking about some mature themes and some mature case studies. So we may want to, you know, keep the younger kids at home for this.
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Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So officers Young and Miller, is there anything else you'd like to share about the upcoming event?
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Chris Miller: I would just like to add that it's an event that parents have. It's local. You have the FBI here. You have a lot of resources you're going to have access to. We're going to be there. And it's a good opportunity to get some knowledge and give yourself a leg up in protecting your kids online.
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Jeff Krakoff: All right. Well, thank you so much. That was that was officers Jason Young and Chris Miller. Look forward to the program and have a great day.
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Jason Young: Thank you. Thank you.
