June 26, 2023 For Immediate Release
As many families are aware, during the school year, City Schools uses a tool called Beacon to alert us when a student uses their City Schools laptop to search for content related to self-harm. During the summer months, when students and staff are not in their regular school programs, the district will be turning the Beacon tool off.
Beginning June 26, 2023, GoGuardian Beacon will be disabled. It will be reenabled on Friday, August 25, 2023.
GoGuardian Filtering will continue, filtering web content on student Chromebooks that are not joined to the City Schools network.
GoGuardian Teacher, the tool that allows teachers to connect with students to manage and support learning on Chromebooks, will still be available for summer learning.
As many families are aware, during the school year, City Schools uses a tool called Beacon to alert us when a student uses their City Schools laptop to search for content related to self-harm. During the summer months, when students and staff are not in their regular school programs, the district will be turning the Beacon tool off.
Should you have concerns about your child’s mental health during the summer break, please reach out to the following:
- National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255
- Behavioral Health System - Baltimore: 410-433-5175
- 211 Maryland - Health & Human Services: 211
Families should also continue to have conversations with students about safe online behavior and mental health. These resources can help:
Finally, there are things that families can do to keep watch on student online activity. These include:
- Only allowing children to access the internet while supervised. This might include moving the computer into a shared space in the house.
- Using your internet provider’s parental controls to manage what students are allowed to access.
- Subscribe to a family content filter.