Partners in Technology: Canyons Seeks Community Input on K-6 Chromebook Usage

Digital proficiency is a non-negotiable skill for today’s students, and it’s up to schools — in partnership with families — to ensure students are safe, responsible, and informed users of the technological tools at their disposal.

With this goal in mind, Canyons District is soliciting input from parents and guardians as the District reviews how Chromebooks are used, accessed, and filtered in elementary schools.  

“We have safeguards and digital citizenship tools in place and, as technology changes, we are committed to adopting new strategies as needed in alignment with our Strategic Plan,” said Canyons Superintendent Dr. Rick Robins.  “We want parents and guardians to be part of this conversation. Just like we do with the adoption of a new curriculum, we invite everyone to have a voice in how we move forward as a District. All voices are valued and welcome.”

Now through April 30, Canyons will be asking parents, teachers, school leadership teams, and School Community Councils (SCC’s) to weigh in on the following three options:

OPTION NO. 1 — Filtering practices at elementary schools to remain as they are now. If parents want more restrictive settings, they can request that for their individual children as they currently are able to do.

OPTION NO. 2 — All elementary-level Chromebooks to be put on the “highly restrictive” level of filtering, which only allows access to websites used for instruction, such as, Google Drive, Google Docs, and Canvas. Adopting this as the standard would mean students can’t use Google search to perform research for an essay or find images for a slide presentation.

OPTION NO. 3 — All elementary-level Chromebooks to be put on the “highly restrictive” level of filtering while allowing parents to choose less-restrictive settings for their own children (the reverse of the current practice).

Additionally, stakeholders will be invited to weigh in on whether Canyons should eliminate the ability for elementary students to access their student accounts after school and on the weekends.

There are multiple ways to provide input.

• In the coming weeks, at their scheduled meetings, elementary SCC’s will vote to endorse their preferred options.
• Building Leadership Teams also will be invited to provide feedback.
• Individual parents and employees can provide input through the “Your Schools, Your Voice” portal on the CSD website. Feedback also will be accepted at communications@canyonsdistrict.org.

“We hope this conversation will spread awareness of the digital safety tools that are already available to families while generating new ideas for how we can work together to create safe technology environments in schools and at home,” Robins said.

Canyons District will also take immediate steps to:

• Limit the use of Chromebooks in classrooms. Chromebooks will only be used for teacher-monitored instruction, projects, or activities.
• Block the media file share-filtering category at the elementary level while making allowances for pre-approved sharing apps.
• Provide regular Digital Citizenship updates and information to families.

For more information about how technology is used in CSD classrooms and other helpful resources, see our Tech for Families website.

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Did You Know?

Canyons District’s Technology Connect portal links families with information they can use to spark meaningful safety and digital citizenship conversations at home. This automated system:

• Notifies parents and guardians any time a student searches on a school-managed Chromebook for terms that could be related to violence or self-harm.
• Allows parents to modify Internet filtering settings on their student’s Chromebook.
• Allows parents to see how much time their student spends logged in to their Chromebook each day.
• Allows parents to see if their student has searched the Internet for any inappropriate terms.
• Allows parents to request that the District consider blocking a certain website, or url.