WCS To Ramp Up Cyber Security
WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools continues to evolve in its efforts to keep students, staff and the community secure in a world where advancements in digital technology have created some unintended consequences to the public safety.
At the monthly work session of the school system’s board of trustees on Tuesday, Feb. 12, the board heard presentations from Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg and Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert regarding cyber security.
Hagg told the board that a new system for blocking unwanted websites and also monitoring the online activity of students and staff is being considered by his department and will be available for approval by the board at its regular monthly meeting on Monday, Feb. 18.
“It’s a company called Securly,” said Hagg. “It will provide all the Internet filtering for all our school devices, and safety monitoring to keep students safe.”
The company is proposing a five-year contract with the school system. According to Hagg, WCS had previously been using Smoothwall for filtering and Gaggle for safety monitoring. “So, this would combine the products,” he said.
According to Hagg, the company is allowing his department to give the new system a test drive.
“We’re testing out the technology capabilities of it,” he said. “Our current filtering agreement doesn’t come due until July, so they’re going to let us use it for free until we get to the summer, and if at any time we decide that this isn’t the right product for us, they will let us fully back out of the contract. But, we negotiated a five-year deal at substantial discounts and we’ll save over $23,000 a year by combining the two products so it’s a huge win-win for our district.”
Hagg told the board that the new product will block students and staff from pre-determined websites, and will also monitor communications in an effort to detect any foreseen incident involving the public safety. Recently, school officials and law enforcement intervened in such a scenario at Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation where an 18-year-old made threats on social media toward faculty and fellow students.
According to Hagg, Securly provides both filtering and monitoring on any school-owned devices as well as on the students’ Google accounts. This monitoring and filtering continues when the students are at home, but for devices purchased by parents or the students, parents would have to take extra steps to expand the control.
“They (Securly) do have a box that they sell to parents for home use and basically, I think it provides a level of Internet (monitoring) for all the devices and allows them to have that same visibility into all the devices,” said Hagg. “Really cool, and it’s got a single kill switch. I think when they’ve had enough of the kids being on digital, they flip the switch and it takes down the Internet in the whole house except for what they use.”
Hagg told the board that school accounts filter through the school’s guest network, which helps to restrict inappropriate websites. He added that virtual private networks, or VPNs, create challenges for his department.
“We’re still constantly looking for ways to restrict those,” he said.
According to Hagg, the school system has approximately 7,000 student accounts and about 1,000 staff accounts. Hagg and Hoffert both told the board that the most important role of such technology is to anticipate potentially dangerous situations. These can come in the form of provocative text messages or other forms of digital communications where there is a perceived threat.
“The serious ones come directly to Dr. Hoffert, myself and Dr. Robertson,” said Hagg. “We kind of make a game time decision, whoever sees it first and we reach out to the principal and let them know there’s a situation going on.”
For serious threats, school officials may call in law enforcement to do what is called a wellness check.
According to Hoffert, digital communication red flags appear far more than he would like.
“There probably isn’t a weekend that goes by that we haven’t had one,” said Hoffert. “I can’t remember the last weekend we had that didn’t have text messages going back and forth. The worst fear that we have is that there’s some self-harm that’s going on or harming others that’s going on. We’re pretty quick on checking things, but if we have three of us that are looking at it at one time, that’s even better.”
Once a potential threat is perceived, school officials and other partners such as mental health professionals and law enforcement do what is called a crisis analysis, which occurs prior to a crisis intervention.
“It’s definitely something we didn’t have to worry about a couple of years ago,” said Hoffert. Hagg added, “this is a big part of keeping them (students and staff) safe.”