Bend‑LaPine outlines technology strategy and plans YouTube allow‑list, parental tools

Karen Rush, the district'''s educational technology lead, and Scott McDonald, director of IT, told the Bend‑LaPine board on May 12 that the district has adopted four goals for educational technology: a disciplined vetting process for instructional applications; developmentally appropriate expectations for early grades; greater transparency with families about tools and AI; and strengthened IT system support and filtering.

Rush said the district is reviewing its application library and will remove tools that no longer meet standards. "Our first goal is to have a more disciplined approach to our instructional applications," she said, describing a cross‑departmental vetting workflow that includes IT, curriculum and procurement.

The presenters addressed community concerns about YouTube on student devices. McDonald said the district already has a tool in use at elementary and middle schools that lets staff create an allow list of specific YouTube videos for student devices. "Right now, at the middle school level, there's about 6,000 YouTube videos," he said, noting nearly 1,000 of those are embedded in school links. The plan is to remove the native YouTube app from some devices and serve curated videos through Canvas or embedded players so students receive only intended content.

Board members pressed for contingency plans after a recent Canvas outage that disrupted classes and assessments. McDonald said the district is convening vendor meetings, working with its insurer, and using status pages and banner messages to keep families updated. He described collaboration with K‑12 security organizations to monitor and respond to vendor‑side incidents.

Directors and students also pressed the district on AI policies and transparency. Rush said the district requires disclosure of AI use in syllabi and will expand AI literacy work with students and families. "When we train on something, then we make sure that that exact information is available to anybody," she said, describing a move to make training and expectations publicly available on the district'''s tech website.

On parental controls, presenters said Jamf (and Jamf Parent/Teacher features) can give families tools to review device usage and set limits; the district will promote those options and include guidance in forthcoming one‑pagers for parents. Officials said measuring exact screen time, especially on iPads, remains technically challenging and that the district will continue focus groups and additional data collection before rolling out broad secondary‑level reporting.

The district framed the work as incremental: some steps (curating allow lists, improving parent guidance) are ready now; others (secondary screen‑time metrics, platform migrations) will require time and staff support. The board signaled broad support while urging the district to prioritize teacher ease‑of‑use so instructional staff are not burdened by new workflows.

Next steps: the district will continue focus groups, publish a library of approved applications and a parental guidance one‑pager, promote Jamf parent tools, and follow up with a post‑incident review of the Canvas outage once vendor details are available.