New for the 2024-2025 school year, the online safety hub has articles for families related to screen time, app reviews and more. 

Online Safety Hub

We're in this together! 
Everyone must take responsibility for his or her own use of the District network or devices. Our staff will monitor student use of technology while they are at school. We ask the same of our families when the student brings their device home. Despite the best efforts of supervision and Internet filtering, all users and their parents/guardians are advised that access to the electronic network may include the potential for access to materials inappropriate for school-aged students.

Personal Information
Have regular conversations with your child around what information should remain private. Information such as names, home address, and telephone number should never be shared online. 

While the primary goal of the KCS provided Chromebook is to provide access to educational resources, KCS recognizes that these can also be used for fun or leisure activities.

Late Night Use
The district does not restrict Chromebook use to any specific time periods due to very different family, work and homework situations.

Our Qustodio app allows parents or guardians to pause internet usage outside of school hours. During school hours (7:45am-4:45pm) teachers and school staff will monitor student activity. Parents can sign up by clicking here.

Some parents/guardians have chosen to have the Chromebook plugged in each night outside of the students bedroom when concerned about late night usage.

Video Streaming Services
Many paid services, such as Netflix, are not restricted from use by the district. Access to the service, payment and use of that systems login and password is at the discretion of the parent/guardian.

Games
Some game sites will be inaccessible on a district provided Chromebook. Knox County reserves the right to restrict access to games that promote violence or have adult themes. 

Knox County Schools are bound by law and Board Policy (Policy I-222) to filter internet access. 

Filtering is accomplished by our software placing each website into a subject or category. Category based filtering can result in sites being both incorrectly blocked or allowed.

SafeSearch
Knox County enforces SafeSearch for all major search engines.

YouTube
Moderate Restricted YouTube access is enforced for all KCS middle and high school Chromebooks. Strict Restricted mode is enforced at all Elementary locations. These setting do not block all videos, but work as a filter to screen out many videos based on an automated system, while leaving some videos still available for viewing.

Social Media
Students can not access sites categorized as social media on KCS Chromebooks. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok all fall into this category.

Filter Requests
Knox County Schools staff can submit a request for web filtering adjustments in our Incident IQ Ticketing System. Please include the website's URL for review.