On Thursday, March 16, 2017, Jesse Weinberger, a nationally recognized internet safety speaker, will come in and give a presentation on internet safety at the Mayfield High School auditorium. The presentation is from from 7:00 to 9:00pm and is for adults only.

Since 2003, Jesse Weinberger has been presenting to parents, students, teachers, and school districts all around the country. Jesse Weinberger is also a TEDx speaker and an author. Her particular passion is in speaking directly to tweens, teens, and parents who may not know the best ways to keep their children safe.  

One of her main points is about cyberbullying, an action that is happening everyday on social media sites. Fifty percent of the time the bully is a friend or best friend of your child. Fifty eight percent of the time, the child that gets cyberbullied is the person that will end up cyberbullying the next victim, says the Overnight Geek University. Jesse will be trying to teach adults to help prevent their child from becoming a cyberbully or a victim.

Jesse is also trying to tell adults about the many ways in which their child is at risk online. If a child is too young, owning a device has a direct impact on sexual precocity and increases risks of sexual and social victimization. Sexting is also a major problem. Sexting is happening right now in your school district among your peers. This could be happening all around the country and could start as early as 4th or 5th grade.

There are about 750,000 sexual predators online at any given moment, the Department of Education estimates. Most children are completely unaware of this and could be at risk if that child thinks they’re going out to meet another child. Jesse will be teaching parents how to prevent this from happening.

“It is not very common where you can run across a presenter who holds such a captive audience. Your lecture actually provided insight and tools on how to fix issues that we, as parents ,may have created or allowed.” said Mr. and Mrs. Meister, parents of a child that once used Instagram. As soon as the Meister’s son heard the speech from Jesse Weinberger at school, he went home and, without hesitation, deleted his account.   

This presentation is beneficial to all parents in Mayfield, because it provides useful tools to help keep children safe in our technology driven world. The internet is a scary place; why not get some peace of mind?