Go Guardian

As part of our commitment to student safety and responsible technology use, Ames Community School District has implemented Go Guardian to help protect students while they use school-issued devices and accounts.

What is Go Guardian?

Go Guardian is a digital tool that allows our district to:

  • Monitor student activity on school devices to ensure appropriate and safe internet use.
  • Filter content to block access to harmful or inappropriate websites.
  • Identify potential concerns related to student well-being, including signs of cyberbullying, self-harm, or other risks.
  • Support classroom management, helping teachers keep students focused on educational content.

What Parents Need to Know

  • Privacy & Security: Go Guardian is designed to protect student data and privacy while providing a secure online learning environment.
  • Monitoring Scope: It only applies to school-issued devices and accounts, both in and out of school. Personal devices are not affected.
  • Parent Involvement: Parents will have access to Go Guardian Parent, an app that provides insights into their child’s online activity and allows for additional filtering controls at home. More details on how to access this feature will be shared soon.

We ask that students use their school-managed accounts and devices for educational purposes within the boundaries of Ames Community School District’s Technology Use Agreements.

When a student is off campus, parents are responsible for supervising internet access and usage. We encourage you to discuss rules for appropriate internet usage with your students and reinforce lessons of digital citizenship and safety with them.  

When Can Parents Begin Using Go Guardian?

The Ames CSD is already using Go Guardian so parents can begin at any time. There will be a learning period as students and staff adjust to the system. Teachers will work with students during class time to help teach them digital responsibility and safety.  Additionally, we will train staff about how to operate Go Guardian and about our policies and procedures to help protect student privacy.

To learn more about how parents can access Go Guardian, visit the Go Guardian website for full instructions. 

Go Guardian Parent App

GoGuardian Parent is an application available on devices running iOS and Android designed to enable IT Administrators to share managed user history collected via GoGuardian Admin and GoGuardian Teacher with verified parents and guardians.

GoGuardian Parent provides Parents and Guardians with the ability to pause their children’s internet, block specific websites, and schedule internet availability on managed devices. These features have no guaranteed functionality on personally owned, unmanaged student devices.

For more information on the GoGuardian Parent App, please read this article What is GoGuardian Parent? Many features are available within the app. These features include:

  • Summary
  • Activity
  • Filters
  • Time Limits
  • Settings

Summary

The summary section provides an at-a-glance, easy to digest overview of what your student has been doing. First, you must choose the student you’d like to view, and the timeframe for the information that you’d like to gather. You have four time frame choices:

  • Last Day
  • Last 7 Days
  • Last 4 Days
  • Last 30 Days

The Summary section will then provide several charts for you to view. These include the following:

  • The Top 5 Websites visited
  • The Top 5 Documents viewed
  • The Top 5 Apps & Extensions used
  • The Top 5 Videos viewed

The Summary section also provides information on Teacher Interventions for your student. This section will show how many times a teacher locked or unlocked your student’s screen, or opened and closed tabs for them.

Activity

The Activity section will simply provide a list showing which sites your student has tried to access each day. If the site was blocked, it will say so just beneath the URL. If the site was accessed, it will show how long your student stayed on that site.

Filters

The Filters section will allow you to block websites that you do not want your student to reach. It is important to remember that your students will still be blocked by the school’s filtering policies during out of school hours. This means that it is likely they’ll already be blocked from inappropriate sites. Additionally, the GoGuardian Parent App will not enable a Guardian to allow a site which is blocked by the school.

Simply click Add Website to begin adding a site you wish to block. Enter a URL you’d like to block and click Create. Once a site is added to a blocked list, the student will no longer be able to access it. If you want to remove a blocked site, swipe left on it with your finger.

Time Limits

Pausing and Resuming Internet

The Time Limits section allows for immediate Pausing and Resuming of the internet to your student. You can pause for various increments of time, from 15 minutes to the rest of the day. You can resume at any time. When you choose Pause, you’ll need to choose your time increment. Once it is paused, it will display the remaining duration of the pause, and allow you to resume internet at any time by choosing the button.

Setting an Offline Schedule

You may also set a schedule for when the internet will be off for your student. When you choose to Add Schedule, please remember that the internet will be off for the time range selected. Select the days you’d like to add a time frame for, and hit create.