{"id":21788,"date":"2024-03-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/resources\/case-studies\/moon-area-school-district-pa-partners-with-lightspeed-systems-for-comprehensive-content-filtering-solution-to-meet-evolving-needs\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T06:39:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:39:33","slug":"moon-area-school-district-pa-partners-with-lightspeed-systems-for-comprehensive-content-filtering-solution-to-meet-evolving-needs","status":"publish","type":"case-study","link":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/en_au\/resources\/case-studies\/moon-area-school-district-pa-partners-with-lightspeed-systems-for-comprehensive-content-filtering-solution-to-meet-evolving-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Comprehensive Content Filtering Solution Meets School District\u2019s Evolving Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nOverview
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Moon Area School District faced significant challenges with their previous inline filtering solution, which demanded extensive administrative time to manage. With almost 4,000 students and a diverse device ecosystem, including iPads for grades K-4 and Windows laptops for grades 5-12, the district grappled with their existing tool\u2019s reporting and policy customization limitations. Seeking a more streamlined and flexible solution that would allow them to adapt to the evolving online landscape, Moon Area School District turned to Lightspeed Filter<\/a>, a cloud-based web content filtering solution, for its granular internet controls and categorization, robust reporting on Windows and iPads, and the tool\u2019s ability to provide network level filtering for BYOD and IoT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nOpportunity: More efficient and responsive filtering solution to meet district needs
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Despite having an inline filtering solution in place, the Moon Area School District informational technology team found itself spending a lot of time mitigating efforts to ensure students were accessing appropriate educational content during school hours. Their inline solution\u2019s limited database hindered its effectiveness, often allowing inappropriate content to be accessed by students, while also over blocking educational materials needed for instruction. The IT team regularly had to submit recategorization requests to their inline provider. These issues consistently impacted staff productivity and disrupted both student learning and protection.<\/p>\n

Casey Kaiser, Director of Technology at Moon Area School District, highlighted, \u201cIt felt like we were constantly chasing the internet with our old filter\u2019s categorization process, taking a long time to figure out where the blocks were happening. We weren\u2019t able to make any changes ourselves to how websites were being categorized, and we had to wait until they made the correction, which was very frustrating not only for us, but also for our teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limited policy management and reporting features also prevented the district from maximizing potential filtering benefits and insights. Without the ability to apply different filtering structures to students and staff, teachers had to rely on a poor performing, improperly filtered guest network to deliver many lessons. The district was also challenged by the inability to filter devices after school hours and on the weekends for students in grades 5-12, a limitation bemoaned by staff and parents alike. And, finally, the existing tool\u2019s very basic reporting capabilities made it difficult to provide insights to principals and the board without manual, time-consuming data gathering and analysis by the IT team.<\/p>\n

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It felt like we were constantly chasing the internet with our old filter\u2019s categorization process, taking a long time to figure out where the blocks were happening. We weren\u2019t able to make any changes ourselves to how websites were being categorized, and we had to wait until they made the correction, which was very frustrating not only for us, but also for our teachers.<\/p>\n

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