District tech leaders outline $12.1M capital plan, introduce Securly classroom and home tools and a new monitoring service

Tech services staff told the Indian Prairie CUSD 204 Board of Education on Oct. 6 that the district has newly allocated $12.1 million in capital funds for multi-year technology refreshes and described recent changes to district filtering, monitoring and security.

Presenters said the district moved most wide-area network connections onto an Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology consortium—an E-rate arrangement—saving about $280,000 and enabling other investments. The district’s annual technology operating budget was described as approximately $9.4 million; tech staff said shifting capital dollars will smooth multi-year device and display replacements that otherwise cause large year-to-year budget swings.

On classroom software, tech leaders said the district replaced its Lightspeed filtering suite with Securly and is piloting Securly Classroom, a teacher-facing monitoring and management tool. A district presenter summarized Securly Classroom functions: teachers can push a URL to every student device, lock students to a short list of sites, message a student discreetly and, during an active class period, see student browser activity. "You…