Blocked Websites at Schools Hampering Learning

Wakefield students make a habit of trying to access dangerous websites; sites like Reading Public Schools, or Galvanize Wakefield, a site created by parents dedicated to the propsect of a new Galvin Middle School.

At least, these sites are considered dangerous by the public school's web-filtering program, Astaro, which is designed to keep the schools compliant with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

As of right now, Wakefield is set to the highest level of web filtering in its schools, which blocks any sites recognized as "uncategorized." This means that any website that does not have a category, such as educational, government, etc. attached to it is automatically rejected on the school's network.

"Web content filtering is crushing us at all six schools," said Elaine Hughes, a teacher and the education technology administrator in Wakefield. "There was this bullying website that a middle school teacher wanted his students to access and take pledges on, but they were all blocked. Guidance counselors cannot access the Reading, Stoneham, or Woburn Public Schools sites. Any site can come through as uncategorized."

Hughes said there is a request form that teachers can fill out which will seek to categorize a site as safe, but the process takes at least 24 hours.

"That doesn't help when you have a lab full of students and you’re trying to do research and [your students] can't get to half of the sites because they’re coming back as uncategorized."

Reason for the Blockages
Hughes said that in previous conversations she's had with David Knox, IT Director for the Town of Wakefield, he noted that these uncategorized sites are blocked because they are potentially a risk to the entire network.

Hughes said Knox said viruses, malware and other network-damaging software could potentially - even unintentionally - be downloaded and compromise the entire town's network, and they often hide in uncategorized sites.

However, Hughes and several School Committee members pointed out that there are other anti-virus software programs that can be applied to the network to help keep the network safe, while still allowing the schools more open acccess to the Internet.

Superintendent Joan Landers said the issue is "frustrating" in a major way in the schools, both to her personally and to the teachers and students.

"Right now I spend one to two-and-a-half hours on technology every day for the elementary students who cannot log on, and as the Superintendent, I'm allowing this to affect education," she said.  "We’ve taken steps forward... but when I'm spending an hour or two every day on this, progress is stopped... I can't get any of this changed, but I think we can get there in collaboration," she said.

To combat the problem, the School Committee unanimously passed a new web content filtering policy last night that gives the school's education technology administrator the authority to determine the level of necessary web filtering for students and staff.

However, there was some discussion about when, exactly, the policy would be implemented in the schools.

As a next step, the policy will be presented to David Knox to implement in the schools.

"This has been going on since September, and I don’t want to see this going on another one, two, three weeks," said School Committee member Cheryl Ford. "[Knox] should be able to go in tomorrow and turn on access."