Teacher ratings being posted on Internet

Monday, Nov. 10, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

Clark County School District students looking for information about which of their teachers gives the most homework or is the least popular with their peers can go online to a website and read the reviews.

Just don't go looking on a school computer.

The teacher-review website RateMyTeachers.com is automatically blocked from school computers by a filtering service the district subscribes to, said Dan Wray of the district's technical resources department.

The district can opt to have any site unblocked by the filtering service, but there have been no requests for the teacher-rating website to be made available, Wray said. As of Friday, just five people had attempted to access the site from school computers in the previous eight days, Wray said.

The site contains information about teachers and administrators at nearly 100 Clark County campuses as well as a handful of private schools. The company claims that it reviews every teacher rating before it is posted and "libelous, malicious or vulgar comments are removed." Teachers are also given the opportunity to appeal a rating, according to the website.

Amy Rayner, who has taught English in Clark County for seven years, heard about the site from one of her students.

"He told me about a month ago he was going to check it out after school," Rayner said Friday. "I completely forgot to go and see if I was on there."

Fortunately for Rayner the comments posted about her are positive although a refresher lecture in punctuation may be in order -- "Shes the bomb shes cool.'

Some other Clark County teachers have not been as lucky, with student comments deriding them for everything from heavy homework loads to allegations of favoritism.

Ruben Murillo, vice president of the Clark County Education Association, said he was dismayed to learn the website even existed and was glad access to it from school computers had been blocked.

"It's unfair to anyone who's name is put on this site," said Murillo, whose union represents the bulk of the district's 15,000 teachers. "It's unfair and biased and teachers have no opportunity to really defend themselves. Imagine if teachers were doing this about students. The uproar would be horrendous."

Murillo also doubted the website's claim that comments were reviewed before being posted. After choosing a school at random from the Nevada list and then clicking on a teacher's name, Murillo seemed to prove his point.

"He's cute, I wonder if he will date me," read a review of a male math teacher.

"How is this a positive addition to the educational process?" Murillo asked. "You're going to see gossip and rumors spread that are going to wind up being hurtful."

Rayner said she didn't mind being listed on the site despite the potential for negative reviews.

"I think it's a good thing for kids to give us feedback about how they feel," Rayner said. "We give them feedback all the time. We should learn to take the good with the bad."

But Rayner also agreed with Murillo that access to the site should not be allowed from school computers.

"This kind of thing only works if there's really someone moderating it, otherwise it turns into a popularity contest," Rayner said. "We should find a constructive way for our students to voice their opinions."

More than 25,000 schools are listed in the nationwide website, created in 2001.

Michael Hussey, co-founder of the website, claimed in an e-mail to the Sun that his site had been unfairly blocked by Desert Pines High School officials this month. But Desert Pines Principal Roger Jacks said Friday Hussey's claim is incorrect -- the blocking was not done at the request of anyone at his school.

Administrators may ask the district to block access to specific sites and the requests are reviewed by a committee, Wray said. The district receives a printout each week from the filtering service of Web addresses that have been added to the blocked sites list.