Viewpoints

The smiley faces are definitely weird. I don't believe in publishing student faces without parent consent. But with the internet providing global access instead of just community access to images I can understand the alarm. Also the redistribution of images is another factor. You can republish that image just like anybody else.
If they are going to cover their faces they should not put the picture up at all.
I am reminded of images of oppressed middle eastern women of the taliban who could not show their faces. It is spooky.

As the world flattens even more, schools are going to be faced with even more of these issues.  We have a policy that allows parents the opportunity to allow or not allow their students' pictures to appear on our web site.  Most parents allow it and it is not difficult in enforce.  If kids are going to participate in a web-based project that will result in more than just the kind of picture that would appear on the front of a sports page after a winning touchdown, parents are again provided more information and an opportunity to allow it or not allow it. 

It is my opinion that kids are in far more danger from their personal picture- and video-taking cell phones than they are from our school websites!

Becky, sounds like a sensible policy.  At our school, we had a permission clause in the enrollment contract.  It could be waived upon a parent's request, but it was there by default.  Blanket solutions like the one Sheryl discusses in this post tend to serve as surrogates for the more effective solution -- effective education of adults and students about the risks and benefits of the virtual world. I totally agree with you that the far greater risk to students exists out of parents' and teachers' purviews -- how they represent themselves in IM's, on Facebook, in chat rooms, etc.  Hard to paste a smiley face over kids in these environments.  Instead, schools need to think about how to adequately prepare kids to navigate these spaces safely. Thanks for the interesting comment Becky.

I was at a conference the other day where someone said that photographers that come in and take student's pictures and then what they do with those pics afterward pose more of a threat than anything done on school webpages. What do you all think about that concept? Has that ever seemed like an issue to you?

I think this is completely over the top.  I agree with the previous poster, simply obtain parental consent in writing.  Most schools do this through one of many standard forms filled out upon enrollment.  It would be a lot easier to simply keep track of the much shorter list of parents who do not want their child's image used than to by default eliminate all online images.  How awful to take away the parent's ability to see their child recognized publicly.  I was on the cover of a newspaper around age 4, and it is one of the treasured items that my mom keeps.