Kentucky Department of Education Expands Partnership with Lightspeed Systems® to Keep Remote Learners Safe Online

Austin, TX, Aug. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lightspeed Systems (“Lightspeed” or “the Company”), creator of the leading K-12 online safety and analytics solutions, today announced a groundbreaking, statewide partnership with the Kentucky Department of Education to implement their cloud-based Filter statewide across K-12 public schools. Through the partnership, the Lightspeed Filter™ will be available to almost a million students, teachers, and administrators across the state of Kentucky.

“With the transition to remote learning, we have a responsibility to provide schools with the most advanced tools available to keep students safe while using devices at home,” said Chuck Austin, product manager for the Kentucky Department of Education. “Since the onset of the pandemic, Lightspeed has been a valuable partner in making sure that wherever a student or teacher is working from, there is a protective measure in place that allows safe and secure computing.”

The Lightspeed Filter, which pairs more than 20 years of experience mapping and understanding the behavior of students online with a comprehensive solution for web filtering, protects and reports on student activity through a cloud-based platform that supports every device, any OS, on and off campus.

Data available through the platform includes student engagement and activity by day of week, including how much of that activity is educational in nature; real-time Lightspeed Alert™ alerts on students exhibiting concerning behavior such as bullying, self-harm, and suicide; and even Parent Reports.

The Lightspeed platform provides the greatest protection and Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) compliance with its granular controls, powerful YouTube filtering for safe use of video in education, comprehensive AI database, and patented Smart Agent technology that provides hassle-free SSL decryption.

The Kentucky Department of Education is ensuring ongoing safety, compliance, and reporting through distance, blended, and on-campus learning by shifting from the on-premise filtering appliances to the Lightspeed Systems cloud-based filtering platform. The new solution will ensure seamless protection for the students of Kentucky wherever learning takes place. The shift comes as the COVID pandemic requires the State to ensure safe computing environments for all students, teachers, and staff regardless of where they are working, teaching, or learning from.

“We’ve been a proud partner of the Kentucky Department of Education for more than five years and support their efforts to ensure that through these difficult times, every K-12 student has safe access to the internet with our latest solutions,” said Brian Thomas, President of Lightspeed Systems. “It is crucial that schools ensure their device programs are safe and effective for students, and we look forward to working with the schools across Kentucky as they maintain educational continuity over the next months.”

About Lightspeed Systems

Lightspeed Systems partners with schools to make learning safe, mobile, and easily managed. Partnered with 6,500 districts in the United States and 28,000 schools around the world, Lightspeed Systems provides an integrated platform for filtering, management, monitoring, and reporting on student safety and device activity. Headquartered in Austin, TX (with offices in Portland and the U.K.), Lightspeed serves over 15 million students in 35 countries. To learn more, visit https://www.lightspeedsystems.com.

Amy Bennett
Lightspeed Systems
737.205.2453
[email protected]