Kentucky Public Schools Get Internet Content Filtering System
The Kentucky Department of Education has selected an Internet content filtering system for implementation at all 173
K-12 school districts throughout the state.
On August 28, 2015, the department announced that all of the state's public
school districts had achieved the ConnectED initiative's goal of providing
each student with 100 kilobits per second (kbps) of Internet bandwidth. With
that goal achieved, the department turned its attention to ensuring that every
student would be protected online. The department conducted a competitive
vendor selection process and chose Lightspeed Systems to install and
implement its Rocket Web
Filter in all public school districts.
"All shareholders within public education understand the importance of
Internet safety," said Chuck Austin, product manager for the Kentucky
Department of Education, in a prepared statement. "We share in the
responsibility to not only emphasize digital citizenship, but also to ensure
that we have the right technology solutions which allow for safe, efficient
and secure access to the valuable resource that is the Internet."
Rocket Web Filter is an Internet content filter designed for the education
environment. According to information from the company, it "offers robust,
scalable filtering for any devices, anywhere, with customizable policies and
drill-down reporting to keep students safe." Each school district can customize
its Internet content management settings, and the system provides reports
designed to help district and state leaders monitor capacity. Other features of
Rocket Web Filter include user profiles for customized access, filtering for
student-owned devices on the network, user activity reporting and a teacher
dashboard for classroom management.
Lightspeed Systems has already implemented Rocket Web Filter to provide on
and off-campus content filtering for 1,223 Kentucky schools.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].