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Welcome to CIPA and Internet Safety

As recipients of E-Rate funding all schools in the SWWC Wide Area Network are required to maintain CIPA Compliance. One of the critical components in becoming CIPA compliant is having an adequate content filtering policy. SWWC currently utilizes Fortinet for our content filter, allowing us to maintain an enterprise class filtering solution for each school district on the Wide Area Network. Your school will be asked to complete an FCC Form 479 on an annual basis to document your CIPA compliance to the WAN Consortium.
 
In addition to the CIPA, Congress has enacted the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, which in addition to the standard CIPA requirements also requires that schools receiving E-Rate funding for services requiring CIPA Compliance (ie. Internet Service) also provide education to all students and staff on Internet Safety. SWWC offers resources as well as a reporting form to help maintain record of your school's Internet Safety activities with students and staff.

From the FCC
The Commission revised section 54.520(c)(1)(i) to include the new certification requirement added by the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. This provision requires a certification that a school’s Internet safety policy provide for the education of minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response. It declined to define or interpret the terms provided in the new statutory language, such as “social networking” or “cyberbullying.”

Internet Safety Resources

Internet safety education is a requirement under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) for schools that participate in the federal E-Rate Program. This is something that can be easily incorporated into any teacher's lesson plan and can be incorporated many times throughout the course of the school year to help re-familiarize students with Internet risks they may encounter in everyday life. One essential component to meeting the requirements is to document activities as they occur and to retain that documentation for the defined retention period (currently 10 years after the last date of funded services).

Internet Safety Education Reporting Form for WAN Districts 

Note: The reporting form needs to be completed annually. 

The resources below have been compiled by SWWC Member School District Technology Leaders and are freely available for use by any school district that wishes to use them. Districts may also use their InfoSec Security Awareness training resources as an in-classroom instruction activity where one or more training videos are shown to the classroom and then discussed.