Students' sex-oriented Facebook page removed

A Facebook page detailing alleged sexual encounters of female students at Uniondale High School was shut down recently after the school alerted authorities to its content.

Administrators said they have limited ability to punish students for actions that occur off-campus, but added in a statement that the school has a zero-tolerance policy regarding bullying and cyberbullying.

"The district provides multiple programs and workshops to educate students about the dangers and consequences from participating in this kind of behavior," the statement read.

A Uniondale spokeswoman said officials do not know who created the page.

Cyberbullying has led to a spate of recent suicides, including that of a Rutgers University student who leaped from the George Washington Bridge in September after classmates allegedly broadcast his sexual encounter with another man.

Nassau County police said they visited Uniondale on Friday and took a report at the school's request but have not charged anyone. The report was passed to the computer crimes unit, said spokesman Det. Lt. Kevin Smith.

Alanna McDonald, 17, a senior at Uniondale, said she knows a young woman who was named on the page. McDonald said the untrue post - which included "very disrespectful things" - hurt the girl's feelings.

McDonald said the page was called "Nassau County's Nasty List" and that it also named students from surrounding schools, including Freeport and Roosevelt high schools.

She said Uniondale school officials made an announcement about the page more than a week ago, asking students to come forward if they had any information. McDonald said she was not named on the page and didn't know of its existence until the school made its announcement.

"I would hate to have my reputation ruined on a Facebook page based on information that is not true," she said. "I think it's really ridiculous. I feel bad for some of the people who were talked about."

Her mother, Sara Morrison, 39, of Hempstead, said she called a family meeting when she learned of the page. She said technology has opened up a whole new and sometimes scary world for parents.

"It started with MySpace, then Facebook and then Twitter," she said. "You have to be really keen."

Morrison said she isn't particularly tech savvy, so she's enlisted a cadre of her friends to monitor her children online.

"Even though I don't use those social pages, other parents are watching," she said. "We are sort of like a village."

With Matthew Chayes