The following content is intended to provide some basic information for parents/guardians who wish to implement parental controls and/or filtering on their child's school-issued device(s) while at home. This information primarily applies to school-owned iPads and Chromebooks, but could also be used to secure personally-owned devices. 

There are a number of tools available for parents/guardians who wish to implement parental controls on their child's/children’s devices. However, in order to prevent conflicts with VCS’ mobile device management system (MDM) and to prevent required functionality from being unintentionally disabled during the school day, no parental controls may be used that require installation onto the device itself. This includes any VPN Apps or configuration profiles. (What is a configuration profile?)

While VCS filters and manages Internet traffic, content filters, and sets safe-search parameters on all VCS owned devices used by students, most restrictions will not be enforced when devices are used off-campus. The preferred approach for parental controls of student devices on their home networks is to use the parental controls features that are built-in to the device or available on your home network. 

Please note: Valley Christian Schools does not evaluate, endorse, or support the products listed or linked on this page, nor provide technical support for any of the products listed. VCS is unable to modify the devices, install apps or management profiles, or alter their current configurations. Unfortunately, we are also unable to provide technical support with regard to parents’ home networks, their ISPs, network devices, nor solve individual problems that may arise. 

This information is being presented as a convenience for parents in their efforts to filter their home networks. Parents are ultimately responsible for the research, information, and steps required to restrict their own home networks should they choose to do so, and to the level they feel most comfortable.

The cost of each solution varies based on the product and solution.

1. Use iPad’s built-in parental controls in Screen Time settings.
• Use parental controls on your child's iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch 
2. Use your Internet Service Provider’s router’s built-in parental controls.
• AT&T
• Spectrum
• Xfinity

• Personally-owned routers

• Refer to your owner’s manual to learn more. Here is some general advice. 

• Use a dedicated filtering device or software application

• Circle
• Winston
• Sophos (application)
1. Use a web-based service if your home network does not have built-in parental controls.
• OpenDNS
• CleanBrowsing
• AdGuard

• Enforce browser safe search

• • • • • iOS & Chrome

Sites to always allow

The following sites are used by common school-related apps and websites so please do not block the following:

• https://vcs.net
• https://powerschool.vcs.net
• https://learn.vcs.net
• https://Google.com

• Refer to teacher syllabus for additional grade level or subject-specific links and apps

Additionally, if you choose to employ “exception URL filtering” (block all sites except those specifically allowed) you may be required to add many more site URLs including those associated with each of the iOS apps required for school. Our recommendation is to avoid this kind of filtering as it tends to be time-consuming for parents.