The administrative team at Patrick Henry Local Schools has decided that student devices will no longer be added to our district wifi starting next academic school year which will eliminate BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).
There are multiple reasons for this upcoming change. First, we are unable to accurately report and decrypt BYOD traffic on our network, which means it prevents the district from being able to monitor what students are doing on their personal devices while they are on our network. In addition, students on personal devices are able to easily bypass our filters. This is problematic for many reasons, but most importantly, it prevents us from properly monitoring the BYOD traffic within our network.
To ensure all students have equal access to wifi supported technology, every student has been assigned a device that has been designed to work appropriately on our network. We quickly respond to problems on these devices and we are able to maintain the appropriate controls and reporting. If we can continue our positive repair trends from the most recent years, we hope to lower the Total Protection Fee for next school year. As you may know, we also allow school devices to be taken home at night, and over the summer.
For the remainder of this school year, we will continue to keep the guest network for students who have working BYOD devices. Students will be able to continue using their devices under our network without any changes for this academic year.
Please know that the decision to eliminate BYOD was only made after much discussion and deliberation. However, for the cyber safety/security of our students, and for the efficiency of our tech department, it will most certainly be a positive change. If you have questions, please ask. Feel free to contact Dustin Ruffell with any technical questions. If you have general questions/concerns, you may also contact any of our building principals.