How Azusa’s technology team makes web filtering and online safety for students easy with Content Filter by ManagedMethods
Like many school districts, state-of-the-art technology is at the forefront of Azusa Unified’s educational mission. As Director of Technology, Manuel Sanchez’s job is to make the district’s tech stack the best (and safest) it can be.
Students, faculty, and staff all rely on internet access throughout the school and work day. At the same time, all school districts that receive federal e-Rate funding are required to use a web content filter for CIPA compliance. This requirement has long been a thorn in the side of K-12 technology teams, who have to rely on often complex and outdated technology to meet these requirements.
However, beyond CIPA compliance, web filters are important for many reasons. They help keep students away from harmful areas of the internet and focus on their classwork. They also offer an important layer of defense to a district’s cybersecurity strategy by blocking access to dangerous sites that can infect devices and networks with malware.
“The first thing that jumped out at me about Content Filter was how simple and effective it is. With other web filters I’ve used, there’s always so much to dig into. With Content Filter, there’s not a lot to look at. It’s very simplistic, which makes it incredibly easy to set up and manage.”
— Manuel Sanchez, Director of Technology, Azusa Unified School District
The Challenge
“We have a team of technicians on-site supporting minor issues,” Sanchez said. “But at the district level, there’s only three of us managing cybersecurity among other duties.”
Like most K-12 tech directors, Sanchez has used a few different web filters. He said that he found a lot of them to be so bulky that they slow things down for everyone. They can also be difficult to set up and complex to manage. It’s frustrating to spend a lot of time setting them up and fussing with configuration changes only for them not to work.
“Content Filter is so lightweight that we were able to run it at the same time as our existing solution without impacting our end users’ experience. We were set up in about 15 minutes and we started seeing results almost immediately. We were able to report on activity and see what students were attempting to access. It was also impressive that it had no impact on our end users when running both web filters at the same time. It’s a no-brainer for us.”
— Manuel Sanchez, Director of Technology, Azusa Unified School District
“We are assigning devices to students. They are taking devices home and into the classroom, so we need to ensure that we are preventing them from getting into things that they shouldn’t be getting into.”
The Solution
Azusa Unified School District was already using ManagedMethods’ Cloud Monitor product to secure their Google Workspace when we launched our new Content Filter product.
“Cloud Monitor is amazing. As school districts with limited budgets and staffing, when it comes to looking for solutions there are ‘nice to haves’ and there are ‘need to haves’. Cloud Monitor is definitely a ‘need to have’. So, my experiences working with ManagedMethods and their Cloud Monitor product is why I was so open to trying out Content Filter,” Sanchez explained.
After seeing a demo of the platform, Sanchez decided to try it out with a free proof-of-concept (POC). While other web filters require a lot of planning and time to set up, setting up Content Filter was so easy that he didn’t need to wait for a school break to give it a try.
“Content Filter is so lightweight that we were able to run it simultaneously with our existing solution at the time without impacting our end users’ experience,” said Sanchez. “We were set up in about 15 minutes and started seeing results almost immediately. We were able to report on activity and see what students were attempting to access. It was also impressive that it had no impact on our end users, even running both web filters at the same time. It’s a no-brainer for us.”
As a Google Partner, ManagedMethods built Content Filter to integrate with Google Admin console. It is based on the Organizational Units (OU) you have set up in your district’s Google Admin console to help you customize rules based on your existing structure. Sanchez also set up blocking rules by pre-defined categories and imported his existing block and allow lists into the platform, making setup a breeze.
“The first thing that jumped out at me was how simple and effective it is,” recalled Sanchez. “With other web filters I’ve used, there’s always so much to dig into. There’s so much you have to do to modify settings, for example. With Content Filter, there’s not a lot to look at. It’s very simplistic, which makes it incredibly easy to set up and manage.”
The Results
With the POC running smoothly and Content Filter doing its job, Sanchez saw no reason to wait until summer to implement it fully.
“I saw the benefits of Content Filter almost immediately after starting our POC. I said, ‘Well, it’s running and it’s going to continue to run.’” Sanchez recalled. “I didn’t see the need to wait to migrate because we were essentially live. We just opened it up to more students the next day and, essentially, it was installed. It was seamless.”
“If you’re not sure which direction you want to go and you just want to give Content Filter a try, the POC has little to no impact in terms of getting it set up and running it in your environment. The amount of visibility you’ll get from Content Filter is amazing. I encourage everyone to try it out. It’s something that we’re required to have, so having something in place that works well and is easy to manage is a huge plus.”
— Manuel Sanchez, Director of Technology, Azusa Unified School District
One of the features that has been particularly beneficial for Sanchez and his team is being able to see account activity by internal IP, external IP, and device. They had run into issues where a student figured out another student’s password, and they started wreaking havoc using their account. They were sending inappropriate messages and trying to go to sites they were not supposed to.
Content Filter makes it easy to see if this activity is happening on the district’s internal IP address or from an external IP address. Further, if it’s internal, Sanchez can identify which device it’s coming from and use that information to match it to the student who was assigned that device.
“I love this feature. It’s super useful for us to figure out when a student’s account gets compromised and where it’s coming from,” said Sanchez.
With Content Filter, Sanchez can now direct his team’s limited time and resources to other important priorities rather than fussing with complex web filter user interfaces and frustrating configurations.
“If you’re not sure which direction you want to go and you just want to try it, the POC has little to no impact in terms of getting it set up and running it in your environment,” Sanchez recommends. “The amount of visibility you’ll get from Content Filter is amazing. I encourage everyone to try it out. It’s something that we’re required to have, so having something in place that works well and is easy to manage is a huge plus.”
