Starting February 8, Lake Elkhorn and HCPSS are participating in the use of Lightspeed, a platform and instructional support tool that helps teachers keep students on track and safe as they navigate online learning.

Lightspeed enables teachers to link students’ HCPSS or personal Chromebooks and HCPSS Dell laptops into a single virtual classroom for synchronous lessons, giving teachers the ability to monitor students’ screens and share resources.

Lightspeed allows teachers to:

• Assist students with using the technology

• Monitor live independent work 

• Lock screen to transition between live whole group activities and live independent work

• Close browser tabs and automatically navigate to websites

Teachers will only have access to Lightspeed during regularly scheduled class time.

Teachers do not have the ability to control computer screens, including clicking buttons and changing settings. However, teachers can direct and lock a student’s computer to specific websites. If the website turns on the student’s camera and/or microphone, the teacher would be able to observe the video and audio the web camera picks up. For example, if a student was on a site viewing their own image via the web camera the teacher would be able to see that content.

Additionally, to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, HCPSS uses Lightspeed to filter ​inappropriate content and monitor ​general usage of the Chromebooks, during and beyond the school day.

There will be no opt-out option for Lightspeed. HCPSS-issued devices and accounts are governed primarily by HCPSS Board policies: 8080 Responsible Use of Technology, Digital Tools and Social Media, 3040 Technology Security, and 3060 Student Data Governance and Privacy.

We’re looking forward to offering this additional platform for our teachers to better provide support for our students. Thank you as always for being our educational partner during this unprecedented time of virtual learning.