Policy advisory panel votes to advance consolidated tech and security policies

The North Kingstown Policy Advisory Committee voted to advance a consolidated set of technology policies to the School Committee after discussing wording, responsibilities, and legal constraints.

Chair Aaron Earle moved to send the merged drafts — Responsible Use of Technology combined with Log‑on Usage, CIPA (internet‑use) combined with Internet Filtering, and an updated Written Information Security Program (WISP) — to the School Committee with the edits discussed by staff. The motion was seconded and the committee agreed to advance the materials for the formal School Committee review.

Committee members asked staff to tidy cross‑references (remove duplicate references to NKSD in the drafts), replace references to specific dollar fines with language about potential civil or criminal liability pending legal verification, and adopt accurate terminology (for example, changing "two‑factor" to "multi‑factor" authentication where appropriate). Legal counsel and IT emphasized that compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and practices tied to the E‑rate program administered by USAC should be explicit in the drafts so administrators and the public understand funding consequences of over‑filtering.

The committee also requested clearer definitions of “user” (staff, students and guests), a single place to store the district’s list of filtered categories that staff and the public can reference, and insertion of procedural language describing district‑level appeals for unblocking requests. IT staff said classroom filters (via tools like GoGuardian) are time‑limited and teacher‑controllable, and recommended adding explicit policy language that teachers may apply classroom filters during instruction.

Next steps: staff will merge and clean the drafts and return with finalized language for Policy Advisory Committee and School Committee review prior to formal adoption.