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    Safe Technology Utilization and Digital Citizenship Report for School Community Councils

    2023-2024

    In 2015, the Utah State Legislature passed HB 213 Safe Technology Utilization and Digital Citizenship in Public Schools. The intent of this legislation is to involve school community councils in an on-going discussion (at least annually) about creating a safe technology environment for students in public schools. The State Board Rule R277-491 requires a report to the councils from the district and school about the technology and training that is currently in place within the school district.

    Technology

    The Cache County School district provides access to technology by both staff and students to assist in the educational process. This includes access to devices, software, and the Internet. Currently, all of our schools have Internet access. The Internet provides a wealth of educational resources. Unfortunately, the Internet also contains inappropriate content. The Cache County School District strives to provide a safe environment for both staff and students but recognizes that no system is 100% safe. The school community must work together to help ensure an environment that is safe and secure.

    Appropriate Use and Internet Safety Policies

    The Cache County School District has an Acceptable Use Policy (Spanish) for students and employees. Staff and students are expected to abide by these policies when utilizing technology. These policies should be reviewed annually in each school.

    Training

    The federal Child Internet Protection Act requires schools to review appropriate online behavior annually. The following are resources for each school to accomplish this training:

    • Digital Respons-Ability

    https://respons-ability.net/

    Digital Respons-Ability is a local Utah company that works closely with K-12 students, parents, and educators to teach digital citizenship, the ethical and responsible use of technology. They have partnered with Prevent Child Abuse Utah in order to provide training throughout the entire state of Utah. Here is the contact information to start scheduling presentations with Digital Respons-Ability.

    • Netsafe

    www.netsafeutah.org – Includes training materials in several languages for students, employees, and for parents.

    • Utah PTA

    The Utah PTA provides information for parents about internet safety at home, including recommendations about free filtering and monitoring software. It also includes videos parents could use to communicate with their children about internet safety. http://www.utahpta.org/netsafety,

    • White Ribbon Week

    White Ribbon Week provides free guides to hold White Ribbon Week at schools. White Ribbon Week is an annual program often conducted by the PTA or a parent group that teaches children to make smart choices when using media and technology. http://whiteribbonweek.org/

    • Internet Filtering

    Internet Filtering enables the school district to manage the type of web content end-users (e.g., students) can access. The Cache County School District currently uses iBoss, an Internet filtering solution supported by the Utah Education Network.

    Internet Filtering functions as a combination of traffic-cop and bouncer. The filtering software checks a user's web page request against a list of website addresses that have been deemed inappropriate for the school setting. If the web page's address appears in the list, that page is not allowed, and the end-user is notified that the content is not accessible.

    The Internet filters in the Cache County School District are set-up differently depending on the grade level configuration.

    Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, no filtering solution is 100% effective. It is important for educators within each school to do the following:

    1. Take time to review and discuss Internet safety and digital citizenship with students including

    2. Always monitor and supervise students who are accessing the Internet

    3. Educate parents, community members, and other stakeholders about the challenges that Internet Filtering entails

    Additional Management Tools

    The School District currently provides schools with LanSchool and Chrome Management to help school personnel monitor and control student use. In addition, the district provides GoGuardian to provide school administrators and teachers better tools for monitoring and managing student use of Chrome Devices.

    Student Email Accounts

    Google currently offers schools a free-hosted solution for their email, calendar, and chat through Google Apps for Education, an integrated communication and collaboration solution. Google offers this service for free. Google Apps for Education is free of advertisements and no student user data is collected. Google also provides additional security, administrative, and archiving controls for education including spam filtering. The school district limits elementary students from emailing students or educators outside of our school district.

    Social Networking

    Cache County School Board policy reads, “Students shall not access entertainment sites, such as social networking sites or gaming sites, except for legitimate educational purposes under the supervision of a teacher or other professional.” Currently, the school district blocks social networking sites unless the site is being utilized in a class specifically designed to teach social networking as part of the class content. Access is limited to a specific area of the school and for a specific time period.

    Additional Questions

    Additional questions can be directed to:

    Technology Support Manager - Clayton White clayton.white@ccsdut.org