GEN: American School Directory

[Nancy Badertscher <badertn@ROCKBRIDGE.NET>]

Dear Fellow LM_Netters:
        I believe we have discussed before the American School Directory and its
information on every school in the country.  I just received the monthly
mailing for Education World with its picks for the best sites of the month.
 ASD is listed there with A+ in most categories.  I'll admit I hadn't paid
much attention to this particular discussion before, but I decided to look
up our town's schools just to check its validity.  To my dismay, I found
several errors immediately.  The map for the area shows our high school
several miles from where it actually is; 2 schools are listed that do not
exist, and never did with the names they have given them; the principals'
names are incorrect or seriously misspelled for 2 out of the first 3
schools I checked; the vocational school is listed as a separate school but
is actually a part of Rockbridge County High School and has been since RCHS
was opened in 1992; there is no mention of our school systems' homepage
that is on the web or of its address.
        It is a real concern to me that this site is "out there" on the Web with
no input from anyone in our system/s but presenting itself as having
correct information.  Anyone who sees this site will assume that it is the
"real" page for our schools and if and when they discover that the info
given is incorrect or out of date will assume that WE are not keeping it up
to date.  As the developer of a website for our high school I am very aware
of how difficult and time-consuming it is to keep a site up-to-date.  I do
not want to be considered also responsible for one - or more than one -
into which I have no input.  I have read through the Disclaimer section of
this site and see that basically they are responsible for nothing.  I can't
imagine that anyone in either of our local systems had any input into this
info - no one could have given them all this incorrect information.  I
certainly don't plan to list this site on my website but is there anything
further we can do?  Is our only recourse to try to ferret out the various
sites that may list our schools without our permission and make sure that
they are up-to-date?  I personally feel that I have my hands full trying to
keep my own library's site current.
        If there is much response to my message, I'll post a HIT.

Nancy Badertscher, Librarian
Rockbridge County High School
Lexington, VA

home  -   badertn@rockbridge.net
school  - nhbader@rcs.rang.k12.va.us
http://www.rcs.rang.k12.va.us/SCHOOLS/RCHS/Library/RCHSLIB.htm