Why DNS and Content Filtering Are K–12’s Most Versatile Security Tool

In the past, content filtering tools were clunky. Amy McLaughlin, cybersecurity project director for CoSN, remembers what that was like during her tenure as director of IT operations at the Oregon Department of Education.

“The original content filtering tools were based on large databases of addresses that had been marked as ‘bad’ and needed to be blocked,” she says. “It was a very manually driven process.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of one-to-one devices in schools led K–12 districts to demand a much more flexible solution. 

Today’s K–12-native Domain Name System (DNS) filtering platforms from vendors such as GoGuardian, Lightspeed and Securly are much better suited to today’s learning environment, in which devices are managed both onsite and offsite. 

“If students are using a school device off campus, a cloud-hosted solution allows that device to be efficient and still filter wherever it needs to,” McLaughlin says. “If you have an on-prem, older-style solution, you’re basically having to engineer student devices to go back to the school network for filtering before it goes out to the internet, creating a latency bottleneck.”

In addition to artificial intelligence-aided filtering tools, these new solutions often come bundled with solutions to help teachers easily monitor and guide computer use during class time, and additional components that monitor student well-being, using AI to flag self-harm searches, detect crisis-related content and alert counselors before situations escalate.

As districts walk the fine line between filtering content and sharing knowledge, many appreciate the versatility that continues to advance the content filtering space.

AI-Powered Filtering Helps a Missouri District Stay Ahead of Inappropriate Content

In the Camdenton R-III School District in central Missouri, Technology Director Adam Johns appreciates the evolution of DNS filtering tools. 

“Content filtering tools are really leveraging machine learning and AI to identify patterns in sites to automatically block them,” Johns says. 

The district of nearly 4,000 K–12 students relies on one-to-one Chromebooks. And, like many districts, the level of access to the devices depends on the grade of the student, with limited access in lower grades and almost full-time access by high school. 

At any age, however, websites with inappropriate or attention-grabbing content — such as gaming sites aimed at children — proliferate quickly. It can be difficult to detect proxy sites, which host this content while hiding real web addresses. Johns explains how his district uses its content filter to detect sites like these.

“A content filter can’t fully capture proxy sites, because it’s almost like having a web browser within a web browser,” he says. “GoGuardian has a proxy site detection feature, where it can see traffic patterns to the website and identify it as a possible proxy site. It sends the tech department alerts, and a few people can sift through them and block them if necessary.”

Cloud-native filtering enables grade-level policy customization, parental visibility dashboards, and real-time activity reporting that districts can use for everything from Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act compliance documentation to cybersecurity insurance audits. 

From an administrative perspective, everything is “quick and easy,” according to Johns. For example, for kindergarten through the fifth grade, the team can allow access to specific websites requested by teachers, and open access more broadly to middle and high school students.

“One of the biggest benefits is putting all of the tools that you have in a single suite,” Johns continues. “You have DNS filtering. You have the teacher management side. You have tools for student safety threat awareness. And there are new tools coming out all the time.”

Safeguarding student internet activity is necessary for E-Rate and other federal and state funding and is mandated by local school boards.

Johns says he hopes that in the future, content filtering sites can become even more nuanced.

“Say there’s an educational tool I want to open, and it has an embedded video from YouTube,” he says. “Today, that might be blocked without explicitly allowing each individual link. I hope that content filters will automatically detect these dependencies and unblock them.”.

Overall, Johns thinks Camdenton R-III School District is achieving the right balance.

“The technology team tries to keep them safe online, and teachers keep them learning. When we work together, it leads to the best outcome for our entire district,” says Johns.

How One Clever Student Sparked a DNS Filtering Overhaul

Years ago, an inventive student in Ohio figured out how to take down the entire school’s network every day at 11 a.m., for just a half an hour. Conveniently, this happened when he was headed into his least favorite class.

What the student didn’t know is that he was shutting down a central internet location serving about 50,000 users in other districts. That’s when Mike Daugherty, assistant superintendent at Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools, knew his district needed a better DNS filtering system. 

“The whole reason we needed a new solution is because it was very tricky at the time to track down the source of the shutdowns with the filtering that we had in place,” Daugherty says.

Chagrin Falls is a smaller school district in the greater Cleveland area with about 650 students. The district has a one-to-one Chromebook program, with more limited access for younger students. 

Daugherty was looking for a solution that would give his team visibility into what the students were doing online. His team also chose GoGuardian.

“We’re able to see activity down to the individual student: what they're up to, what websites they're going to, and where they've been,” he says. “It keeps the information even if students clear the browser history on their devices.”

“We also use the teacher module,” Daugherty continues. “You can sync GoGuardian with Google Classroom, so the teacher can see all of the screens in their classroom. If they see someone off task, they can see what tabs they have active and what they have in the background. They can message students privately to close tabs or close the tabs themselves. At any age, but especially in middle school and for older kids, saving face is very important, so teachers really like the ability to redirect students privately.”

Chagrin Falls also uses GoGuardian’s Beacon feature.

“It reviews all of the content that the student is looking at, and if it is related to self-harm, threats or bullying, we are alerted,” Daugherty says. “Many of those alerts are false positives, but over the years, there have been alerts that were real that led to direct intervention.”

Keeping students safe on a number of fronts, no matter where they are, is one of the key advantages of cloud-based filtering.

“A cloud-based content filtering product makes it easier to manage devices when they are offsite,” says McLaughlin. “So, if students are traveling with their school devices, a cloud-hosted solution allows those devices to be efficient and still filter, wherever they are.”