Austin, Texas, Dec. 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lightspeed Systems® (Lightspeed), the leading K-12 online safety and effectiveness solutions provider, closes out a year of tremendous innovation, growth, recognition, and company-wide initiatives that helped schools world-wide provide safe online learning and maintain learning continuity in a year of unprecedented changes to the learning environment.  

Due to COVID-related school closures, schools quickly were forced to pivot, deploying devices and online learning programs in a matter of weeks. The Lightspeed commitment to being a trusted partner for schools meant the company needed to also swiftly respond and support district leadership to ensure continuity of learning. 

“As schools this year were thrown into a completely new environment, seemingly overnight, we as a company wanted to ensure we did everything to support district leadership,” shared Brian Thomas, President & CEO, Lightspeed Systems. “From getting schools set up with cloud-based filtering within days to making rapid enhancements to our solutions, we have been and will continue to be unwavering in our commitment to schools.” Thomas continued, “I’m especially proud of our team’s dedication as we were able to maintain a 95% customer satisfaction rating, despite a rapid increase in demand for our solutions.” 

Product team internal growth and development to boost online learning effectiveness  

In the quick shift to a primarily remote learning environment, the rapidly growing Lightspeed product team responded with key developments throughout the year to help schools, students, and parents take on new challenges and provide safe, equitable learning at a distance. 

• Launching the Lightspeed Parent Portal™ was a critical development for increased at-home safety and parent involvement, providing parents with visibility into student online activity and controls to establish healthy screen time limits.  
• Intuitively designed and based on customer feedback, Lightspeed Filter™ was enhanced with the Online Activity Dashboard to provide easy remote learning insight into active students and their online activity. 
• Lightspeed Analytics™ developments – complete with a new interface with customizable app management, expanded compliance-tracking capabilities, and custom chart builder – provide a depth of visibility necessary for remote learning decision-making in order to maintain compliance, optimize remote learning resources, and identify opportunities for cost-saving.  

• With a ground-breaking integration with leading remote learning resource Microsoft® Teams, Lightspeed Alert™ AI monitoring capabilities was extended to Teams chat and Teams meeting chat activity to prevent incidents of self-harm, suicide, or violence.  
• For teachers on the frontlines of navigating remote learning, Lightspeed Classroom Management™ was enhanced with an increase in class sizes, custom one-way messaging, and Zoom integration launcher. 

An ecosystem of solutions recognized for ongoing innovation, success, and proficiency   

In 2020, Lightspeed Systems was recognized as a Top Innovative Ed-Tech Solutions Provider by Enterprisetechsuccess Magazine for its suite of online safety and effectiveness solutions. Lightspeed Filter received an Award of Excellence from Tech & Learning for Best in Software and was recognized as a Cool Tool Award Winner by EdTech Digest. Another Award of Excellence was earned by Lightspeed Analytics for Best in Enterprise Solution. Lightspeed Mobile Device Management™ also received recognition as a Top 5 MDM Tool for Education by Tech & Learning.  

In addition to recognition for its solutions, the company also achieved AWS Education Competency Status, a designation that recognizes Lightspeed for its proficiency and proven customer success in providing solutions to support its K-12 customer base. 

Dedication to the future of K-12 and customer success 

To best serve its K-12 schools, parents, and students, Lightspeed commissioned research to enhance its knowledge base and product development. Partnered with AWS, Lightspeed helped share insight on the evolving challenges and solutions associated with remote learning in the 2020 Back to School Report. In addition, Lightspeed also worked to gain insight into another key stakeholder in K-12 education – parents. In this survey, Lightspeed helped surface the root of concerns in online safety. 

In continued efforts to support their global customer-base, the new Lightspeed Customer Portal was launched to better support districts with online chat, increased visibility into support cases, users, account information, and licenses. The portal was designed to be a one-stop platform for customer support, implementation resources, and live updates.  

Company-wide support of safety, equality, and local communities  

In company-wide efforts to support safety, equality, and its local communities, Lightspeed Systems made contributions to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as well as various non-profits supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, SAFE Austin, Christmas for Kids Portland, Children in Need BBC, and Toys for Tots. 

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About Lightspeed Systems

Headquartered in Austin, Texas (with offices in Portland and the U.K.), Lightspeed Systems is the leading online safety and analytics platform for schools. Lightspeed uses advanced AI to monitor and analyze activity across the web for signs of self-harm, suicide, cyberbullying, and other inappropriate behaviors. When a potential threat is spotted, real-time alerts are sent to designated personnel, providing screenshots and other important information to drive appropriate intervention. Lightspeed is dedicated to helping schools worldwide provide a safe, mobile and manageable learning environment. Lightspeed serves over 15 million students in 38 countries and 28,000 schools globally, including 6,500 school districts in the United States. 

To learn more, visit lightspeedsystems.com.

Ida Yenney KCPR for Lightspeed Systems
[email protected]