Students in Madison City Schools now have their own individual email accounts.

“We are excited to make this tool available to our students,” technology coordinator Katrina Allen said in announcing the new service.

Student accounts “will facilitate their ability to receive information from teachers, submit assignments electronically, collaborate with peers and send work or research between school and home,” Allen said.

For students in elementary grades, email accounts primarily will be used “to allow them to utilize online educational project resources, such as Prezi, which now require an email address for the user to access the tool,” Allen said. Prezi is a communication tool, dubbed a ‘virtual whiteboard,’ that produces graphics-driven visual presentations (prezi.com).

Student email addresses have the madisoncity.k12.al.us domain. Students can only send or receive email from the school domain. However, administrators can “white-list” an academic resource, like Kahn Academy, for study, Allen said.

“All student email will be archived on our servers and subject to district filters,” Allen said. “Students will have access from home to their school email accounts through the web portal.”

Parents can specify to the technology department that their child should not receive this email access. A document, “Student Email Account Opt Out Form,” is available on the district’s website (madisoncity.k12.al.us). On the home page, click the “Technology” section and then click the “Help Files” topic.

Parents should submit the completed form to network specialist Aaron New at the Central Office, 211 Celtic Drive or faxing to 256-464-8291.

The email accounts adhere to guidelines in the district’s “Acceptable Use Policies and Code of Student Conduct.”

The student conduct code states that “email is available for the support of educational, instructional, extracurricular and administrative activity.”

The policy also states that email is provided instructional purposes only. Madison Board of Education “cannot guarantee the privacy, security or confidentiality of any information sent or received via electronic mail” but does screen email for ‘spam’ and inappropriate content.

“We hope these accounts will be helpful to both our students and teachers,” Allen said.