PINEVILLE — The internet is an information superhighway that has completely changed the way schools teach. But for students, that unlimited access can often become overwhelming — and even dangerous.

A local school district is taking more steps to ensure that the learning environment remains safe while giving students opportunities to search the web.

At a public hearing earlier this week at the Bell County Board of Education building in Pineville, David Smith, Chief Information Officer for the Bell County School District, spoke about updates the board has taken to ensure internet safety.

He said there are three hardware appliances in place to monitor and filter activity on the school’s network. The district recently added a new program to the system.

But there several basic measures they use, like requiring all students, teachers, and staff to login with a username and password.

“That prevents anybody from just walking in and using their computer,“ added Chris Warren, District Assessment Coordinator for the school system. “If they don’t have an account with us, you can’t get on our network.“

Smith said students are also regularly observed in the classroom.

“Teachers are our first line of defense with monitoring,” he said. “They’re in the classroom with kids while they use the computers.”

But Smith has implemented several filters that can monitor and block inappropriate sites that contain inappropriate material. One of the servers, Smith described, is updated everyday and can filter roughly 97 percent of bad material.

“I won’t say it’s fail safe, but it does a really good job,” said Smith.

Another filter that has been in place blocks material tagged by keywords. He said sometimes it will block material that doesn’t need to be blocked, but overall it worked well.

But on top of that, Smith said the district recently purchased one of the top programs available on the market to safeguard schools.

“It’s an appliance that allows us to look at exactly what you’re looking at in real-time,” said Smith.

The Enterasys Dragon is a high-end security device that will actually tell network administrators what words are being entered into search engines and updates every 30 seconds. This allows them to track certain students, faculty or staff who may be viewing inappropriate material — if so, their account can be instantly shutdown.

“There’s only a few schools districts in Kentucky that have it,” said Smith. “We were lucky enough to get it through the E-rate program.”

The program costs around $15,000, but the school system only had to pay 11 percent for it, thanks to the E-rate program. E-rate is a federal program that provides “discounts to assist most schools and libraries with obtaining affordable telecommunications and Internet access,” according to the program’s website.

Smith said the district recently had an internet security audit and the auditor deemed it “one of the cleanest networks he’d seen in Kentucky.”

Thompson said the network was a “safe haven” for students.

“We want folks to know we take all measures possible to make sure our kids using the networks are as safe as you can have it,” said Thompson.

Stephen Woodward is a Staff Writer for the Daily News. He may be contacted at swoodward@middlesborodailynews.com.