Technology Services

• Review technology rules and guidelines
• Review Student Acceptable Use Procedures
• Monitor student use when not at school
• Ensure laptop is properly cared for while student is away from school

Access to the internet is critical to students for learning at home and to connect families with schools. Please consider the following options:

• Lake Washington School District – Offers free cellular hotspots to families that do not have home internet service. Check with the student’s school office.
• 1 Green Planet (1greenplanet.com) – Donates personal computers for district students in need for online learning at home. Contact equity@lwsd.org for assistance, or call 1Green Planet directly at 425-428-4414 for availability.

If your student brings their device home, you can support your student in the following ways:

1. Remind your student to charge it every night and bring the charger and the device with them to school each day.
2. Encourage them to store the device in a secure location both at school and at home.

Students should follow these steps before turning it in for repair:

1. Restart the device.
2. Do not close the lid during this process.
3. Check to make sure the device is connected to the internet.

If your student continues to experience issues with their device (or if it is damaged), they should take it to their school’s library if they are in middle school or high school. There, they will complete the computer repair form and turn it in with the device. They will be issued a loaner device to use while it is being repaired. They will receive an email when your device is repaired and ready for pick-up.

If your student is in elementary school, they should bring their device to their classroom teacher.

If a student receives this notification upon login, make sure the device is connected to a wireless network and then restart the device. If the message does not resolve, the student should take the device to the Student Support Desk in the school library to be fixed.

Students may be able to borrow a spare power cable from the library. Barring that, the student would have to charge their device in the school’s device location (often the library) and lose out on participation in the classroom device activities until the battery is charged.

Each school has a very small number of loaner devices. Priority for these loaners goes to students who experience equipment issues outside of their control. When available, a student who forgot their device may be issued a loaner device by the school.

The student should bring the broken device to school library to turn it in. A loaner device may be checked out on the spot to minimize loss of instructional time.

The loss needs to be reported to your student’s school as soon as possible and they will be issued a loaner device. Please work with your student to reinforce the importance of taking care of the device.

Students should file a police report and give a copy to the school librarian for our records.

A secure location is available for students in PE and on athletic teams to keep technology equipment safe during those programs. If your student is unsure of where to keep their device, have them ask their PE teacher or coach.

When students use district-issued devices, while at school or home, they access the internet through district filtering and security systems. These systems are provided to help keep students safe online. They are also designed to meet the federal requirements outlined in the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

LWSD computer filtering relies on security systems and Microsoft. These state-of-the-art filtering systems are used to block inappropriate or objectionable material and provide online computing environments for students which support their education. However, no filtering system is 100% reliable. It is reported that over 33,000 web sites are created each day and new sites with objectionable material for students can be missed or may have not yet been indexed for filtering. Students are responsible to help ensure their online safety and should report any inappropriate sites. The district’s Acceptable Use Policy and Acceptable Use Procedure prohibits the use of proxy bypass or other tools that can circumvent the district’s filtering systems.

General categories of sites which are blocked by district firewalls include: Alcohol, tobacco and abused drugs; nudity and adult content; dating; social networking; games, shareware and freeware; streaming media and music purchase and download; web hosting and web based email, online storage and backup; hacking, malware, and phishing; internet portals, personal sites and blogs, private IP addresses; proxy bypass/avoidance and dynamic DNS; and translations sites which can circumvent filtering systems; as well as other identified objectionable content.

District technology staff can block additional sites identified as containing inappropriate content. If sites within blocked categories are needed for specific instructional purposes, teachers can request those sites be opened for access.

Get the username and password from your student. While we prohibit sharing passwords with unauthorized users, parents are explicitly authorized users. We encourage you to know what your student is doing on his or her school laptop.

Students are provided with a district-issued device for several reasons:

Safety: The district has installed web filters and other safety precautions that help prevent students from accessing inappropriate or unsafe websites while at school or home.

Instruction: The district has purchased and installed several different software packages on student devices that are not available for download on personal computers.

Technical Support: The district provides robust technical support for all district devices and cannot offer the same level of support for personal devices.

Equity: When all students are using the same device with the same settings, software, and access to resources, they can focus on what they are learning with the device, not on who has which device and what else is on it.

Students are not precluded from bringing their personal devices to school. Students who choose to bring them:

• Must also bring their district device fully charged and available for use
• Must use the district device when required by the teacher
• May access the Internet only through guest wireless network, where filters are set to an advanced level of protection
• Will not receive technical support or assistance with personal devices
• May not access printing or charge their personal device at school
• Do so at their own risk. The district is not responsible for lost or stolen personal devices.

Yes, students can install drivers and print to home printers by following these directions from Microsoft.

Please note that wireless and network printers require additional steps and possibly software that are beyond the scope of this tutorial and may require manufacturer tech support. Also please note that students are not allowed to install software other than printer drivers on their device so printers requiring print management software may not be compatible with the device. Check with the manufacturer to see if they offer a driver only solution.

Parents can email ftaccess@lwsd.org or call 425-936-1322 for 24x7 assistance if issues persist.

For security reasons, the district does not give students, families, or guardians administrator rights to student devices.

If your home wireless security is more complex, we can offer the following recommendations:

1. Add a segment to your network with less security for use by the student device.
2. Hardwire the student device directly to the home network to bypass the wireless network.
3. Open a hotspot for use by the student device separate from your secure wireless network.
4. Consider using standard security settings.

Approved software is available in the Software Center for students to download.

We are bound by the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to filter Internet content to any devices accessed by students on the LWSD network. Some students dislike the filters. Given the opportunity, students could install security-defeating software to bypass this requirement. Some students also would also be tempted to use the devices for illegal file sharing. All of those actions violate the district’s Acceptable Use Policy.