Fellow E-Rate slaves,

Felt I owed you a gentle reminder before I leave for vacation that several
important E-Rate deadlines are looming.

1. Year 4 (now known as Year 2001) closes June 30, 2002.
If you haven't already done so, you should be gathering final billing
information so that you will be ready to file you 472 BEAR forms. This is
how you get reimbursed for the telcom dollars you have expended this year if
your provider didn't do discounted billing. You will need to fax the fourth
page (of the BEAR form) to the vendor for them to sign and return to you so
that you can fill the 472 with the SLD.  Below are the numbers we have for
some of the major vendors.  If you have more that you would like to share
send them to me via email and I will post them on the E-Rate webpage.
www.state.me.us/msl/erate.htm <www.state.me.us/msl/erate.htm>

Verizon -   Fax:315-798-9167  Voice: 1-800-537-0434

Lucent Tecnologies - 202-756-7092

AT & T - 877-272-2545

2. CIPA and NCIPA requirements must be in place by July 1, 2002
The courts have still not determined the fate of the CIPA law, although the
ruling could be released at any moment. Consequently we must proceed to meet
its requirements until such time as they are struck down even if that is
distasteful. That means either accepting filters or choosing not ot
participate in MSLN.  We are suggesting, however, that you wait until we
post information and suggestions about how to proceed which we will do as
soon as we have a descision from the court..  In the meantime school
districts and libraries can make necessary prelimnary arrangements to meet
the law as it now stands.

The good and painless news about filtering for some of you  is that the
MSLN2/MTEAF Board and the PUC have accepted a proposal for MSLN2 to provide
filtering at no cost to schools and libraries desiring to use this option
for Year 5 only.  All sites will be contacted to determine their
participation or desire not to participate as soon as the Court renders its
decision.  Please remember that most of you are subject to CIPA simply
because you are a member site of MSLN2 and connect to the Internet via your
MSLN connection, and that includes ATM sites that do their data via ATM.
Your own telcom services are exempt and most of us do not qualify for
Internal Connections which is the other qualifier.

As it stands at this moment anyone connecting to the Internet or using
E-Rate dollars to buy Internal Connections must have a "technology
protection measure in place by July 1, 2002.  Libraries, because of the CIPA
court cases, may not have to meet this requirement if the court determines
the law to be unconstitutional.  Schools are not part of the court case so
we are less sure about the impact this case will have on them.

NCIPA is the portion of the CIPA law that requires an Acceptable Use Policy
that has been set as the result of a public forum*.  It also requires that
the AUP adress these five issues:

 The policy must address :

1. access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet & World Wide
Web;

2. the safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms,
and other forms of direct electronic communications;

3. unauthorized access, including so-called 'hacking',  and other unlawful
activites by minors online;

4.  unauthorized disclosure, use and dissemination of personal
identification information regarding minors;

5.  measures designed to restrict minor's access to materials harmful to
minors.

* For libraries public forum can mean an actual public meeting held to
discuss filtering/blocking or a regular Board meeting in which
filtering/blocking is an agenda item as long as the meeting is public and
notice is given to the public.

For schools the public meeting can also be an actual public meeting, or part
of a schoo l board sgenda as long as the publis is normally notified and
allowed to attend.

Final  NCIPA reminder - your Accepatable Use Policy should be accepted and
in effect on July 1, 2002.

3. 470 and 471 forms for Year 2003 (Year 6)

Form 470 is ready for posting if you have some reason to start the process
early.  The 471 will be available soon.  Do not use the old 471.  In fact I
believe that you can't get to the old 471 electronically anymore.

Wish I had had time to post some AUPs but my schedule has not allowed that.
If anyone has a posted AUP you would not mind sharing I'd be gald to make a
page of links out of them to share with everyone.


Have a great holiday!!  Edna


Edna M. Comstock
Coordinator Learning & TechnologyServices
E-Rate Team Leader
Maine State Library
64 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0064
[log in to unmask]
1-800-322-8899