by Sara Jane McQuaid

Junior Sara-Jessica Dilks was in the library for a free  Tuesday, Jan. 22, after receiving an assignment for a project in Social Concerns with teacher Michael Sanem. Dilks’ assignment required her to research a current event that involved the Catholic Social Teaching of the “Human Right to Participation” – a concept that the students had learned earlier that day. When Dilks typed in “CNN.com,” an unexpected message appeared: the familiar and frustrating Lightspeed Systems.

According to Jeff Zimmerman, a member of the technical support team, three years ago STA introduced the program Lightspeed Systems on the school’s brand new netbooks. The administration wanted to assure that students were not surfing the web on non-educational or distracting websites during class.

The qualifications or requirements that the IT department looked for in a content-controlling software is it’s ability to follow a student off campus. According to Principal of Academic affairs Barbara McCormick, the administration uses this program to assure safety while learning online and minimize the amount of distractions experienced while working online.

STA President Nan Bone, stated that this content-controlling software, which was put into action by the IT department at STA, is intended to prevent access to certain websites students search and view. However, in the case of Dilks and other students, the program constantly interferes.

“Lightspeed Systems prevents students from looking up websites that do not apply to their school work or is not relevant to what they are currently studying at unnecessary times,” senior Elizabeth Arensberg said. Due to the amount of irritation caused when using this program, she thinks it should not be required.

“I hate [LightSpeed Systems] because it blocks unnecessary things and causes much frustration for beginning and experienced students at STA,” Arensberg said.

“It is not about [whether or not students like] the system; it is about providing a safe learning environment for our students,” McCormick said.

The program can be viewed as either positive or negative depending on those impacted. Occasionally, technology teacher Jillian Hamilton, views this program as positive because she does not want to disrupt class if an obscene image pops up. However, Zimmerman sometimes views this program as aggravating because of the frequent updates that often fail. Students, such as Dilks and Arensberg, agree that this program can cause much frustration.

“I understand that the administration uses Lightspeed as a method to eliminate distracting activity online during school hours, but I’ve found that the system is extensive and actually interferes with how I conduct research for educational purposes because virtually everything seems to be blocked,” Dilks said.

For the rest of the free, Dilks continued to try to research for the project. She attempted to access various other websites since CNN had been blocked. The websites were not inappropriate or non-educational-most of them involved subjects that pertained to the subject she was researching. Yet, many of these websites were blocked as well, so, in the words of Dilks, “that free was wasted completely.”