Gail Barth, language arts teacher, had no intentions of overriding Rockwood’s network filters when she searched for the 2011 film, “Anonymous,” on Google.

“I wanted information on it for my classes, and for the English department,” Barth said.

But when she entered the title of the film in the search bar, she was greeted with an “Access Denied” message.

“I just thought it was weird,” Barth said. “I couldn’t just type in anonymous.”

Barth was finally able to find information on the movie indirectly on IMDB.com, and said that she doesnt usually run into problems with the filter. But Barth said she didn’t see the rationale in blocking the word.

“I respect the district’s attempt to protect the students,” Barth said. “Some of it I understand, and some of it I don’t.

Barth is certainly not alone in having keywords blocked while she uses Rockwood’s computers. There is a 59-page list of terms students and teachers alike cannot access. While the vast majority would be considered profane or obscene, terms like “anonymous” have been questioned. Some have even argued that the district’s keyword blocking goes too far.

Dan Glossenger, social studies teacher, took issue with some of the terms on the list, and even submitted a request from the “Access Denied” page to have the word bisexual removed. The word is still blocked.

“You never get a response,” Glossenger said.

For Glossenger, the issue isn’t always what does appear on the list, but what doesn’t.

“Certain hateful insults are blocked and others aren’t,” Glossenger said. “That bothers me.”

The word faggot is not blocked on Rockwood computers, Glossenger said. That lack of consistency is one of Glossenger’s main concerns with the filter.

“If you’re going to block hurtful terms, you need to take a strong stance,” Glossenger said.

Dennis Kane, broadcasting teacher, took issue with the lack of transparency in the filtering system.

“Instead of just getting a list, it needs to be monitored,” Kane said. “The way it’s done needs to be more transparent.”

Adam Goldstein, Attorney Advocate for the Student Press Law Center, suggested that the blocking of certain keywords could be considered an infringement on student’s First Amendment rights to free speech.

“[The district] can block whatever they want during instructional time,” Goldstein said. “Anything that could be considered a distraction.”

Outside of class, however, is when Goldstein said keyword blocking could potentially become an infringement on students’ rights.

“There are things a school district must block,” Goldstein said. “Then there are things that they can block.”

Words like anonymous and Facebook (which did appear on the list for some time) fall into the latter category, Goldstein said.

Will Blaylock, technology director of Rockwood, defended the practice of keyword blocking as a means of protecting students from harmful content on the internet.

“90 percent of [the words] are tied to porn, unfortunately,” Blaylock said.

Many of the terms on the list do in fact relate to porn, some in different languages. Others, like anonymous, are on the list to prevent students from overriding the filter with the use of proxy servers and other internet masks. Anonymous is blocked on district computers because a student could be trying to search the internet anonymously.

“That’s a common practice in bypassing filters,” Blaylock said.

The necessity for keyword blocking stems from the speed at which websites are churned out. If websites could be categorized as they were created, Blaylock said, then website blocking would suffice. New websites, however, pop up too quickly for that to be possible.

“One company can set up thousands of sites in a day,” Blaylock said.

Rockwood doesn’t only have a filter in place just because it can. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) grants public school districts E-rate funding to the tune of $240,000 for having a filter in place to prevent students from accessing obscene, pornographic or harmful content on the internet, Blaylock said.

CIPA is not a requirement by the federal government, but rather an incentive, one that many public school districts have responded to.

“I don’t know of a [public] school district that doesn’t do [filtering],” Blaylock said.

Blaylock, however, does not create the list of blocked words on his own. Lightspeed Systems, the company whose name appears on the “Access Denied” page, compiles the list. Rockwood staff members can appeal to have words removed from the list as necessary.

“The actual list is updated by the company we use for internet filtering,” Blaylock said. “Periodically, we review the list and also respond to request for terms to be unblocked.”

Facebook, for example, ended up on Lightspeed’s list of blocked terms without Blaylock’s knowledge.

“Why [Facebook] came in, we have no idea,” Blaylock said.

Overall, Blaylock said his intention wasn’t to restrict students’ access to information for instruction.

“I’m a teacher,” Blaylock said. “I’m all for giving students access to information.”