Supporting
Senate Bill 29

What are schools restricted from doing?

According to Sec 3319.327 (A), a school district or technology provider shall not electronically access or monitor the following:

• Location-tracking features of a school-issued device
• Audio/visual receiving, transmitting, or recording feature of a school-issued device
• Student interactions with a school-issued device, including, but not limited to, keystrokes and web-browsing activity

What are the exceptions to the above?

Sec 3319.327 (B) outlines that there are certain scenarios where the above is acceptable. Those situations include:

• The activity is limited to a noncommercial educational purpose for instruction, technical support, or exam proctoring by school district employees, student teachers, staff contracted by the district, a vendor, or the department of education, AND notice is provided in advance
• The school district or technology provider is notified or becomes aware that the device is missing or stolen
• The activity is necessary to prevent or respond to a threat to life or safety, and the access is limited to that purpose

If any of the above exceptions are met, the school district must provide written notice to the parents of its enrolled students.

NetSupport School – On-premise classroom management

For over 37 years, NetSupport School is the market-leading multi-platform Classroom Management and Monitoring software solution for schools, supporting teachers with a wealth of assessment, monitoring, collaboration and safeguarding features – to support effective learning in a safe environment.

• Authorized/restricted website and application lists can ensure students are focused and help minimize student distraction and access to inappropriate content.
• Monitor students’ current Internet use by viewing real-time thumbnails of their PCs to ensure they are on task – plus, teachers can create a record of Internet history use to be printed or saved for later reference.
• Real-time keyboard monitoring provides a simple view of each active student and their current keyboard input – a crucial aspect in detecting safeguarding issues and can be used to identify inappropriate behavior.
• Teachers can show their screen or a student’s screen to demonstrate positive digital interactions while promoting appropriate technology use, helping to create good digital citizens.
• Student feedback mode allows teachers to gauge students’ wellbeing and get insight into whether they need extra support.
• The Technician Console allows schools to apply ‘always on’ internet, application, printing policies and more.

classroom.cloud – Cloud-based classroom management, safeguarding and IT management

Our cloud-based solution, classroom.cloud provides essential tools for flexible instruction in any setting. Combined with a safeguarding toolkit to provide a safe learning environment at all times, and IT management features to helps schools centrally manage and maximize their edtech, classroom.cloud is a 3-in-1 award-winning solution. 

• Teachers can show their screen to demonstrate positive digital interactions while promoting appropriate technology use, helping to create good digital citizens.
• Monitor students’ screens to see what they’re typing and who they’re collaborating with in real time to ensure they’re on task and remain focused on the lesson.
• ‘Allowed’ and ‘restricted’ website/application lists help teachers provide a safe learning environment by ensuring students can only access relevant websites and are shielded from unsuitable content during lesson time.
• Keyword monitoring (powered by over 20,000 phrases covering a range of safeguarding topics) helps to provide insight into trending issues – plus, schools and districts can also add their own keywords. 
• Word cloud of trending topics helps teachers to quickly spot trends and identify potential risks – with detailed reporting to further protect students.
• Identify and support vulnerable students with the contextual intelligence Risk Index. This assesses the context and history of a student’s current activities (the device used, time of day, websites visited, and applications used) and considers them alongside any previous alerts they may have triggered.
• Keeping track of events is super easy, as all new events are flagged as being ‘new’ and progress can be marked to ensure all supporting staff are aware.
• Choose your monitoring settings to reduce false alarms by excluding certain applications and websites (including Microsoft Teams) from being monitored to focus on more high-risk areas.
• Keeping things super secure is a breeze with two levels of staff access to ensure only authorized users have access and control over safeguarding settings.
• Set monitoring hours to specify when students are being monitored, for example, only during school hours, at all times when using their school devices, or only on the school network.

NetSupport DNA – IT management with safeguarding

In addition to providing IT Management tools, NetSupport DNA also includes a built-in safeguarding toolkit as standard to help enhance schools’ internet safety policies and student safety. It provides the tools needed to identify students at risk, prevent them being exposed to inappropriate online content, encourage greater digital citizenship, and fulfil a school’s safeguarding duties – all in line with ISTE/CIPA guidance.

• Keyword and phrase monitoring tool allows schools to quickly gain insights into what students are typing, searching for, or copying online – and it’s available in multiple language packs.
• Innovative word cloud helps to easily highlight trending topics across the school – while appropriate staff are alerted through email, real-time pop-ups or summary reports, prompting them to review the triggered event.
• Contextual intelligence-based Risk Index automatically flags high-risk events and vulnerable students, creating a risk index number for each event, based on sophisticated contextual intelligence risk analysis.
• ‘History of Concerns’ is available to help identify students that were flagged as vulnerable or at-risk, ensuring they have extra support.
• Report a concern allows students to reach out for support in confidence to a teacher they trust, and teachers can also add any concerns they have about a student.
• Age-appropriate Internet monitoring tools ensure students are using the Internet properly with age-appropriate profiles – creating a safer Internet with parameters to allow students the flexibility to learn about the online world in safety.
• Apps and games can also be blocked or restricted to help schools add an extra layer of security and keep students on task. The application metering reports reveal application use, helping to ensure usage complies with school policy.