Protecting our Students and Staff Online

In accordance with FCC regulations and the Children's Protection Act of 2001 the Portage Public Schools currently filters all outgoing and incoming web traffic. The filtering software called SurfControl serves as a robust line of defense against inappropriate content or security hazards on the World Wide Web (WWW). SurfControl exams every student and staff Internet request and either allows or denys the requests based on specific rules set by SurfControl and the Administrator. Since the WWW is ever changing SurfControl's internal database is updated daily with new sites and categorized therefore ensuring the best protection possible.

If you would like to learn more about this product and its features please visit SurfControl's website at www.surfcontrol.com.

Submitting Blocked Sites for Approval

The Technology Department does its best to ensure that our school community has access to safe and education friendly internet resources. However sometimes internet filtering technology can miscategorize and block "good" sites. To help improve their classroom experience Teachers and staff can submit educationally beneficial sites to help@portageps.org. The sites will be reviewed and every resonable effort will be made to ensure submissions are unblocked.

Content Filtering Rules

Adult Content: All categorized adult content and nudity is blocked at all levels in the schools. These lists are primarily maintained by SurfControl.

Image Searches: Image searches are blocked at all levels due to insufficient safe search protection in major search engines like Yahoo and Google. Seemingly innocent searches have been shown to produce unacceptable results. Therefore these resources have been block. Images can instead be obtained from http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/ or our internal website.

Downloads: It is our goal to keep our workstations and network free from malicious programs to minimize the negative impact on educational processes. Therefore, application downloads have been blocked for a majority of PPS users. This action helps to protect district workstations and the network infrastructure against viruses, trojans, and spyware. Applications which are deemed educationally beneficial by Curriculum must go through a district software installation process to ensure they are properly licensed and work with our existing technologies. Teachers and staff can request appropriate downloads by contacting help@portageps.org.

Testing Sites

If you are curious how SurfControl categorizes a particular site in their latest update please visit their testing page.

SurfControl's Test-a-Site: http://mtas.surfcontrol.com/mtas/MTAS.asp