Website blocking has been a predominant tool used by schools to filter what can be accessed on student-issued devices as well as devices that are using the school’s Wi-Fi. Many students and staff have had to work around these blockades throughout the school day, however some find this element beneficial.
The rules and regulations on things such as website blocking and Ohio’s phone policy have strengthened within schools this year. Teachers have seen an increase in productivity and class engagement.
“The no phone policy has been, to me, a game changer in keeping students engaged,” math and Computer Science teacher Joanne Meyer said.
This school year, rules on headphones and viewable content have changed. Students are only allowed to use wired headphones and aren’t supposed to use their phone’s hotspot for Wi-fi, seeing as it surpasses the district’s blocking list.
“It’s constantly revisited, it grows, it changes,” Teaching and Learning Coach, Paul Tankovich said. “As time goes on [and] you revisit, it changes just a little bit to be most effective or useful in each given situation or as new technologies emerge or new situations [arise].”
The policy on phones now prohibits usage at all times of the school day, with the exception of lunch and passing periods. No exceptions made for bathroom passes during class time, or during study halls.
“There are more conversations amongst the students than there [have] been in the last four years,” Meyer said. “A huge increase in interaction in a positive way. Having conversations about math, just conversations and getting to know each other, developing those social skills.”
Some students, on the other hand, have found themselves having problems and growing frustrated with certain websites being blocked. There is the argument that some websites that end up blocked are actually beneficial. Students may not know what they can do to communicate with their tech department or teachers to work together and solve this issue.
“There’s this one main news website that I’ve tried to use for different research papers, and I can’t go into it, even though I know it has this very valuable information,” senior Hannah Kory said.
On the other hand, laws and regulations come into place, where it is out of the administration’s hands.
“I think it is necessary. There are some laws in place that we kind of need to pay attention to, and those laws are tied to funding for public institutions,” Tankovich said.
One big miscommunication has been the staff’s control of what is blocked. According to Meyer, teachers don’t have a say in what is blocked, but can submit requests for sites that they would like unblocked.
“There is a process to get things unblocked that we have to go through and especially since Senate Bill 29 passed about all the student privacy,” Meyer said.
Senate Bill 29 was put into effect this school year, focusing on student privacy and regulations on technology usage during the school day. Schools were also required to adopt new cell phone policies, no later than the 2025-2026 school year. Both of these resulted in more restrictions on school issued devices, as well as new rules about when and what phone usage is acceptable during the school day.
Most, if not all classrooms use Securly, a screen monitoring app that allows teachers to keep track of what they’re students are doing during class time.
Some students say they believe the communication on this topic is lacking.
“I think there’s just not enough transparency, both between staff and students,” Kory said.
