Recently, Wake County implemented a new online content filter on both school-issued devices and devices connected to the district’s Wifi network. The Board of Education approved a contract with Lightspeed Systems, which specializes in classroom management software. 

So far, there have been a few noticeable impacts on students and teachers. 

Especially during the beginning of its use, the filter would block sites that were educational. For instance, it blocked CNN 10 videos on the first day of its implementation.

Griffin Tillotson, senior, said, over text, “In my Law and Justice class, an assignment that would’ve required information from the US Department of Justice’s website had to be delayed because the website was blocked, and it took over a day for the county to unblock it after my teacher emailed them.”

The filter also blocks images, but many of the images it chooses to block are somewhat random: college logos, celebrity photos, even pictures of normal objects. If you Google the word “books” and go to images, several of them are blocked.  

Some students are grieved over the filter because it prevents them from playing games online, which was part of the filter’s purpose, but is still an annoyance to many students who are bored in class. 

Humorously, Claire Fullam, senior, said, “I can’t even do word searches on my computer now because they’re blocked… [The filter] seems like wasted time to me.”

Overall, the effects of WCPSS’s new filter are mixed. For $330,000 a year to run the filter, it should work extremely well, so Wake County needs to work out some of the kinks in the system. 

“I don’t think that the new filter is necessary. Chromebooks are already easier for teachers to monitor than phones, and I never heard any teachers complain about the previous content filtering system. I’m also worried about how much of Wake County’s already low public school budget was spent on purchasing and installing the new system, instead of being spent on something more beneficial,” said Tillotson, over text.