Hat kids likely never saw controversial site

Local school divisions do not believe any of their students accessed the GayStraight Alliance’s “Fruit Loop” Facebook link, which included some graphic sexual content and risqué images for LGBTQ lifestyles that some have called pornographic.

The link was abruptly removed from the government-funded GSA website on Tuesday after some parents went public to speak up against it, and against the GSA administrators who deemed it appropriate for school age children to view in the first place.

Prairie Rose superintendent Brian Andjelic told the News in a statement earlier this week the division had not received any complaints from parents, and the GSA website was not advertised through the division itself as a potential teaching resource. He stated the PRISM toolkit where the GSA is promoted as a resource is distributed by the Alberta Teachers Association.

SD76 superintendent Mark Davidson said a check of school web traffic logs carried out by his staff showed no one in the division had accessed the GSA website or Fruit Loop page through the schools’ computer systems. Facebook is already blocked on school computers and WiFi as a standing principle of the division. “We think it is unlikely anyone accessed this Facebook page in our schools,” he said.

Medicine Hat Catholic Schools superintendent Joe Colistro said he also did not think any of his students had been on the GSA website.

“We do not utilize the PRISM toolkit,” said Colistro. “So our students would not have been exposed to that website or link.”