Safety & Security

Students today grow up surrounded by technology, and families play a big role in helping them use it in healthy, confident ways. When kids feel comfortable expressing themselves safely and authentically online, they’re better prepared for the opportunities that come with an increasingly connected world.

We want to provide helpful resources that support you in guiding your students to be safe and responsible online.

Social Media & Digital Choices Speaker Series II

Digital Resources

Device Management Tools

Digital Citizenship

To ensure that our students are aware of that possibility and to encourage proper, effective use of technology, we have adopted digital citizenship curriculum resources produced by Common Sense Media, as well as locally produced lessons.

In addition, we encourage behavior that is consistent with our offline, in-person expectations, such as being responsible, respectful and kind.

Our Media Specialists have put together some parent-focused resources for social media that you may also find helpful.

Internet Content Filtering

We have several articles available on the topic of HOW we filter Internet content and WHAT a parent can do to monitor Internet usage on a district device.

That being said, our experience is that unfiltered and unmonitored access on personal devices has been a far more prevalent and damaging source of harm and conflict as far as student Internet use is concerned.

Home Internet

The Minnesota Department of Education maintains a digital equity page that also has great resources for home Internet.

Please note that this information may change depending on what Internet Service Providers are offering at any given time; the district makes no guarantees about accuracy. We do hope to be as helpful as we can in providing this guidance.

Comcast (Cable based internet)

Will offer Internet Essentials for 2 months - apply online or call the numbers listed below
Begins March 16, 2020
Eligible households are NEW customers only
Must have students in grades K-12 and/or college
After the first two months expire, you can cancel the service or keep it as a regular paying Internet Essentials customer
In 7-10 days you will receive an easy to use self-install-kit that includes a cable modem with a WiFi router
No term contract or credit check and no shipping fee for equipment
Requirements: one or more members of your household must be eligible for public assistance programs such as:
- National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
- Housing Assistance
- Medicaid
- Snap
- Others
Those interested in enrolling are asked to apply online
The website also includes the option to video chat with customer service agents in American Sign Language. There are also two dedicated phone numbers 1-855-846-8376 for English and 1-855-765-6995 for Spanish.

Comcast Xfinity WiFi Free For Everyone (Un-verified)

This only applies to commercial Xfinity WiFi and not residential Xfinity routers/WiFi

Xfinity WiFi hotspots across the country will be available to anyone who needs them for free – including non-Xfinity Internet subscribers.
For a map of Xfinity WiFi hotspots, visit www.xfinity.com/wifi.
Once at a hotspot, consumers should select the “xfinitywifi” network name in the list of available hotspots and then launch a browser.

CenturyLink - Lifeline (Phone Line based internet)

Contact support via
- 800-244-1111 or 877-391-1117

AT&T Public Wi-Fi

Similar to Xfinity - See AT&T support page for notes on how to find and connect to one of their public hotspots.
Where available, shows up as att-wifi or attwifi in list of available networks.

Netwave Broadband

Available no later than by May 8, and be capable of speeds of 30 Mbps: 100 Mbps (upload and download) for most of the projected coverage areas (about 2,400 homes).
Starting package $149 for installation and $49 dollars a month for up to 40 Mbps package without a router (and $59 with a router).
For more information regarding this service, interested residents are encouraged to contact Netwave Broadband at 952-209-0900.

Shakopee Public Schools will offer a limited quantity of Verizon\T-Mobile internet access hotspots

Reserved for students in grades 6-12 as part of our 1:1 device use and K-8 Online students.
Students/Parents can work with building administration to request a hotspot

Regular Internet Connection Support

PCs for People - Reduced rate internet

Hotspot Purchase $60
Monthly Charge $40/3 months
Address: 1481 Marshall Ave, St. Paul, MN 55104
Call 1-651-354-2552
Email info@pcsforpeople.org
Office hours:
- Monday - Friday 9 am - 5:30 pm
- Saturday 9 am - 4 pm

Home Internet Troubleshooting: The tech department will do its best to help with home network connection issues, but in many cases you will have to contact your ISP directly.

ISP Service Issues: Even if we are not in distance learning, home Internet connections may be utilized more than in the past. Here are a few basic items to check for.

Basic Home Network Troubleshooting: The district does not make house calls to troubleshoot home network connections. Families are responsible for ensuring their own home Internet connection is reliable and stable. Here are a few basic tips to help troubleshoot your home connection

Video Conferencing Tips: Multiple people trying to stream video or be on a video conference at the same time should be avoided when network speed is a concern. Think about simultaneous use of everyone in a household - smart phones, tablets, smart home devices, video games, computers, and any other network connected device. They are all vying for a shared network connection. When having trouble with network latency or connection speeds disconnect as many other devices as possible. The more devices processing network intensive tasks the worse the connection will be. It's not reasonable for three people to be streaming Netflix and also expect Google Meet to work.

The ISP is overwhelmed and having service issues.
- Many ISPs (Comcast, CenturyLink, USI, etc.) are seeing higher bandwidth utilization than ever before.
- Check with your ISP to ensure there are no service issues.
The subscribed Internet plan is not fast enough to support streaming video.
- Most Internet plans in the Twin Cities metro are fast enough to support streaming video.
- In general, 8 Mbps is the minimum required download speed to support to support video streaming or conferencing.
- Network connection speed can be tested here - https://www.speedtest.net/
Data cap for the month has been reached.
- Many ISPs put a data cap in place. Contact the ISP directly to find out if the data cap is reached.
Power cycle router and other networking equipment (turn it off and on again).
Double-check all power, network, and other cables are firmly plugged in.
Restart your computer.

Copyright and Fair Use

Software Inventory

The dashboard linked below provides a summary of free and subscription software and apps that are used in the district. We want you to be informed about these educational tools and assured that we are aware of the need to protect student privacy and maintain an awareness of how student data is being used.

With so many different sites and software being used, it would be very complicated to track parent permission for each of these. They all serve an educational purpose and we make every effort to use each resource in a thoughtful and productive manner. We also reference this list in our student technology handbook and update it annually. If you ever have a concern about a site or would like your child to not use one or more of these resources, please inform your child's teacher and office. At the same time, please be aware that we take student privacy seriously and work to teach responsible use of all of our digital resources.

Click here for the software data dashboard.

State Law HF 2353 requires that we include information about the contract inspection and provide contact information for a school department to which a parent or student may direct questions or concerns regarding any program or activity that allows a curriculum, testing, or assessment technology provider to access a student's educational data. We have tried to include relevant data in the data dashboard linked below, but if there are additional questions they can be routed to our help desk at parenthelp@shakopee.k12.mn.us

Additional Resources & Legal References

COPPA, the Children's On-line Privacy Protection Act.
FERPA, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act.
Minnesota HF2353 - Student data practices act.
Board Policy 515 - Protection and Privacy of Student Records.
US Dept of Education Student Privacy site.