Technology too far away? School district’s internet policy sparks debate among students about restricting access

Lifestyle

by Mia Shu

This article is one of the winning entries in the New York Post Scholars Contest sponsored by Command Education.

Whether it’s protecting students from dangerous websites, preventing students from accessing sites they want, or impacting Wi-Fi connectivity, the district’s Internet policies matter to the lives of students at Jericho High School. It plays a role.

Since the quarantine began, Cisco Umbrella, a cloud-delivered security service that the company automatically updates in a list format every day, has been installed to protect students while learning remotely from certain content. However, basic filtering does not alert schools to content such as violence, pornography, cyberbullying, or hacking.

To remedy this situation, Jericho’s technology department decided to use GoGuardian, a more secure filtering system that works with Cisco Umbrella.

“We have a responsibility to provide a filtered experience for our students,” said Dr. Patrick Fogarty, Director of Educational Technology.

Despite its good intentions to keep students safe online, many people are unhappy with GoGuardian. According to a JerEcho survey, 87.6% of respondents reported that a website they wanted to visit was blocked by GoGuardian.

“Not only does it block things that the school doesn’t want us to do, but it also blocks other sites that we use for research, which disables what the school needs,” said freshman Ethan Y. say.

Senior Maldini M. feels similarly about GoGuardian’s negative impact. she says: “That’s great for teachers and administrators, but for students, it just blocks the websites they’re trying to access while they’re in school.”

Teachers disagree and believe certain types of sites need to be blocked to protect students. “Blocks are frustrating, but we live in a school district with so many beliefs, so many age groups, so many emotional levels, that it has to be safe for all students,” said Ms. Kancemi, a forensic science teacher. ”.

There are four networks available to students: Jericho-BYOD, Jericho Guest, Jericho Wireless, and Jericho-BYOD-Chromebook. For student safety and education, all of these connections were configured to block access for certain apps or disallow certain websites from loading.

Tests were conducted at 15 locations by the technology department to check the Wi-Fi speed around the school. According to experiments, it was found that in the building more than 150 megabytes of data were processed and the Internet was very accessible to people in the school. On the other hand, results obtained from the outdoor track area showed lower speeds, suggesting that students experience a decrease in connection quality when outside the building.

The school network uses three separate ISPs (Internet Service Providers), so if one ISP goes down, your Wi-Fi connection will not be interrupted. This also limits outsiders’ access to controls and protects your system from threats such as ransomware.

Many students want to use a VPN to protect their privacy when using public connections. Using Her VPN at school allows students to access sites blocked by Her GoGuardian. “I use it every day on the bus before entering the school grounds,” said senior Shan L.

JerEcho conducted a study to measure how often students use VPNs at school. The results showed that on a scale of 1 to 5, 62.8% of students gave above-average responses.

“In my opinion, a VPN provides protection and helps resolve things faster,” says Shan L.

However, Dr. Fogarty explains that installing a VPN can put students at risk. [the school’s Wi-Fi] Protect your traffic from people snooping on us. ”

He added: “My department is careful not to go to a website and download something and infect the network.”

At the heart of the tension between some users’ feelings about Jericho’s Internet and the tech sector’s goals is the delicate balance between personal privacy and public safety.

Shu, a 10th grade student at Jericho High School in Jericho, New York, hopes to pursue a career in the medical field.