LG School Board Talks Internet Safety
The La Grange ISD Board of Trustees met Monday, July 19, and discussed several items we covered in stories in Friday’s edition. Here’s more of the issues they addressed:
Internet Safety Policy
David Bennett, the director of technology was at Monday night’s meeting to review the current internet safety policy. The district had upgraded to a newer content filter during the 2018-19 school year and will continue to use that. The district will continue its contract with Google Apps for Education, Gaggle (email and drive monitoring), Sentinel (LTE Chromebook Filtering), and CyberReef (MiFi Hotspots.) The system that filters the Google Apps for Education cost the district $4.50 for each student that has a school Google Apps account. The newly-upgraded content filter is $1,000 per year. Other fiscal implications include training for staff and students about the use of Internet safety, cyber-bullying and appropriate care of equipment. This training will be done using the district’s instructional technologists and technology department.
The board approved the Internet Safety and the Responsible Use Policies as presented. The approval of these policies will allow the district to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act.
These policies help prevent students from accessing inappropriate material on the Internet using filtering technologies, safety measures, monitoring and education.
Budget Amendments
During the past school year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, professional development was provided virtually in most cases. As a result, travel expenditures were minimized as mileage, meals, and lodging were not realized. However, other unplanned expenditures have arisen in the form of furniture needs (conference table and chairs) at the middle school and technology needs (document scanners) at the elementary school. To cover these unbudgeted costs, a decrease in Function 13 – Staff Development in the amount of $5,377 would fund the furniture in Function 11 – Instruction in the of $1,100 and the document scanners in the amount of $4,277 in Function 53 – Data Processing Services. The board approved these budget amendments.