April 13. 2003 6:20AM

Access to porn protested

5th-graders download pictures at school

Dianne Williamson
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE COLUMNIST

Ohra Stott, angry and eight months pregnant, stood outside the mayor's office last week, toting her 10-year-old daughter and five pages of graphic pornography.

"I want the mayor to see what kids were viewing in a Worcester classroom,' she said, as she waved pages of porn that her daughter and other fifth-graders downloaded from the Internet during indoor recess at Tatnuck Magnet School. "I don't want the buck to be passed. I don't think this should be covered up. We need to deal with it.'

Mrs. Stott's daughter and five other students received a one-day suspension for "disruption of school' after they

downloaded pornography last Wednesday during two separate indoor recess sessions that were apparently unsupervised. Mrs. Stott said she was notified of the incident Thursday by the principal, Thomas Pappas, when she picked up her daughter after school.

"When the principal showed me what they were looking at, I choked,' she said, referring to the lewd pictures of naked men and women engaged in various sex acts and displaying their genitalia.

The pictures were apparently downloaded by three fifth-grade students using three computers, while several others watched. Students logged onto the Google search engine and typed in various slang phrases for human anatomy. Computer printouts note that the "safe search' parental control function was off at the time. The actions took place during recess sessions at 10 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.

Friday, Mrs. Stott took the printouts and her sheepish daughter to City Hall. She said she wanted to discuss her concerns with Mayor Timothy Murray, who chairs the School Committee. Mr. Murray was unavailable at the time but called Mrs. Stott later that afternoon.

"I have no problem with my daughter being suspended,' said Mrs. Stott, 30, a former HIV counselor who is married to a Worcester police officer. "She used very poor judgment, and she's going to be punished at home as well. She'll take responsibility for what she did. But where were the adults? Where were the parental controls on the computer? If something like this can go on at a school like Tatnuck, what's going on at our inner-city schools?'

Stephen E. Mills, deputy school superintendent, said school officials monitor the classroom as closely as they can, and all students must sign "appropriate use' contracts before using computers. The incident took place during recess held indoors because of inclement weather, he said.

"The students were apparently sophisticated enough to know how to get around the various barriers we have in place that prohibit students from gaining access to inappropriate materials,' Mr. Mills said. "We have some great resources in terms of technology. It's a wonderful opportunity for students to gain more information than you or I had when we were kids. Unfortunately, mistakes are made, and kids access things that we don't want them to access.'

I asked Mrs. Stott if she were overreacting to a "kids will be kids' situation in which the offenders have already been disciplined.

"Look at these pictures and tell me if I'm overreacting,' she replied. "If a school found out that I was letting my 10-year-old child use the computer unsupervised and she was looking at these pictures at home, I'd be investigated. I think there's a lack of supervision at school, and the kids are taking the blame.'

I asked Mrs. Stott's daughter why she did what she did.

"We just thought it was funny,' she said. "I shouldn't have done it because it was really stupid. I don't need to know about that stuff now.'

Talk to Mrs. Stott further, and it becomes clear that her child's premature exposure to pornography was deeply troubling to a mother who has struggled to educate her daughter about responsible sex, while also trying to counter the relentless media depictions of women as sexual objects.

"I've told my daughter that sex should be respected and shouldn't be taken lightly,' she said. "Then she looks at this stuff and thinks it's normal. Girls get so many mixed ideas ... Women are human beings and they have brains, and I try hard to instill certain values about sex. Now, she's been derailed. Maybe I didn't give her enough information. I feel like I failed as a parent.'

Mrs. Stott sat on a bench at City Hall and rested her hands on her swollen stomach. She gazed thoughtfully at her daughter, a pretty young girl with big brown eyes like her mother. Mrs. Stott admitted that she doesn't know what further action she expects of the school, nor does she know how to shield her child until she's old enough to make responsible choices.

"I guess this whole thing just really shook me,' she said. "I'm not saying my daughter won't be seeing this stuff down the road, but she shouldn't be seeing it now. There's enough pornography out there without her seeing it at school.'