INTERNET FILTER

Overview

The Amador County Unified School District wants students to use the most up-to date technology and learning tools. Just as our schools are required to have a plan for student safety, it is imperative that we keep our students safe on the Internet.

HR4577, also known as the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), is landmark legislation that for the first time requires K-12 schools and public libraries that receive certain federal funds (such as E-Rate) to implement Internet safety measures. These requirements, adopted this year and that take effect for the upcoming funding year, include:

• Implementing a technology solution that filters or blocks inappropriate/unwanted Internet content;
• Adopting an Internet Safety Policy; and
• Holding a public meeting as part of preparing the safety policy.

The school district has adopted Lightspeed Systems Total Traffic Control technology as our filtering solution. The purpose of this solution is to block student and staff access to world wide web network resources that have been deemed inappropriate for K-12.

We have a well defined process to block and override blocking for websites.

Unblocking Procedure

If you think that an Internet resource has been improperly blocked, you can request that the site be “unblocked” by clicking the “Submit it for review” link on the “Access Denied” web page.  You will then click the “Submit for review” button.

Blocking Procedure

If you feel you have accessed a site that should be blocked (made unavailable to the district students and staff), we can address that as well. This is probably more likely since new sites are coming on line at the rate of 1,000’s per day. All we need to know is the URL of the page you want us to block.

Copy the website address exactly as it appears in the location window and paste it into an email message to: Ava Kearney  (and ask for the website to be blocked).

As soon as we receive the message (that mailbox is checked quite often every day) we will do the following:

• Visually check the resource
• Block the Website
• Notify the originator of the request of our action.