How Virginia Beach solved all
educational and safety needs with one provider

Challenge

Large Virginia district finds a perfect partner in Securly for safety, security, classroom management, and more

Most Americans think of Virginia Beach as a resort town, with miles of ceanfront hotels and restaurants. What they might not be aware of is that the 70,000 students who attend Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) outperform school divisions across the nation on key academic indicators.

The district's mission is to help students become responsible offline and online, thanks to its "Be Social. Be Smart. Be Safe." campaign, which teaches digital citizenship and best practices, particularly surrounding social media. "Our hope is that we provide a safe digital environment, where students recognize the importance of being good digital citizens and have the tools available to help protect themselves in an ever-growing digital world," says Shane Snedecor, Information Security Manager for VBCPS.

In fact, the district has been focused on educating and protecting students from the beginning of its 1:1 program.

Outcomes

Adding additional layers of safety

With the 1:1 program fully in place and the parental community engaged, VBCPS continued to look for ways to keep students safe. That's when they purchased Securly Aware, which monitors Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive for cyberbullying, suicide, violence, and sends alerts to the appropriate district contacts.

"The release of Aware could not have come at a better time for us," says Snedecor. "We were already using Securly for internet filtering. Aware rounded out our student safety lineup, proving to be an extremely valuable tool in our efforts to identify struggling students and cyberbullying early."

In a nutshell, Aware fills in that missing piece of visibility, which is where students spend the bulk of their time creating content: Microsoft and Google Mail, Docs, Drive. Students use Google Docs to share notes and have innocent chat conversations through collaboration features, but it is also one of the number one vectors of modern bullying.

Aware and Filter combined helped paint a comprehensive picture and bring it all into a single-pane-of-glass, and having Securly screen student emails was a huge relief, but Snedecor was still concerned that he might miss an alert if he was asleep or otherwise unavailable. Luckily for him, Securly launched a new service: Securly On-Call.

On-Call is a team of highly trained specialists that analyze flagged activity alerts and tips, then conduct a thorough risk assessment. The team looks over alerts from the AI, factor in context, and get rid of false positives. If they determine an imminent threat, they call the district.

"The On-Call team knows what it's doing, and I'm confident that nothing gets missed," says Snedecor. "Every time we need something, Securly is there!"

Going with one partner for all filtering, security, and management

VBCPS was already very pleased with its Securly tools, but in the winter of 2019 the district decided to add classroom management to support blended instruction and so put out an RFP for all of the following services:

• On-site internet filtering
• Off-site internet filtering
• Parent engagement
• Student safety
• Classroom management

Securly won the bid, and Snedecor says it's because of the company's excellent customer support, product quality, and the opportunity to work with one partner. "Knowing the level of support and service Securly provides was a key factor, as was the comprehensive services Securly offers. But most of all, I like working with Securly," he says.

Snedecor is pleased to have Securly handle both on- and off-site filtering. "Now we can get the same level on-site as we have for off-site. We're rolling out the classroom management piece, Securly Classroom, and excited to start using that this fall."

Overall, Snedecor knows he has a technology partner he can count on. He says Securly is easy to work with and that whenever he has a problem—which he's quick to point out is rare—it's dealt with immediately. "I just send an email and I get a response in no time, letting me know that the problem is being worked on. I work with the same support people over and over and we have a great rapport."

As someone who has been in IT for many years, Snedecor says he was very comfortable with his appliance. However, he says Securly has proven that it can take filtering to the cloud district-wide, maximize efficiency, reduce cost, and provide student safety everywhere. "The whole implementation has been painless. No matter what the fall brings us in terms of remote learning, we know our solutions will work."