Hello everyone,
My child is going to a boarding school from September. I just found that school does not block adult sites. I am very surprised, but I will have to send a lap top with him soon. What kind of filtering system should I use for the computer? Currently I am using router based system so I cannot use it for the one he is going to use at boarding school.
Thank you so much for your help!
Honestly, I think if you are sending you son to BS, you need to trust him. Even if the school doesn’t block sites, most will have it in their school policies that it is against school rules to access such sites on the school server. If you set up controls to block it on his laptop, he could easily access it on a cell phone or on someone else’s computer if he is truly motivated to do so. I think I’d just talk to him about it and about your expectations. Good luck!
We homeschool, so our kids do a lot of work on their laptops. We’ve never had a block on their computers. If they couldn’t abide by our rules, such as only x amount of game time during study breaks, we didn’t block the sites. We took the computer for the day, made them write all their assignments by hand, and let them try again the next day. If I felt my children weren’t mature enough to follow my rules while they were living at home, I wouldn’t offer them the privilege of living elsewhere. If your son hasn’t given you cause to worry, I’d discuss your expectations with him, like doschicos suggested, and trust him to do the right thing.
Make sure there’s a good ad blocker on his computer, though, because I learned the hard way that moving your pointer too close to them can unintentionally trigger a page change that not only takes you to sites you don’t want to be on, but also dumps nasty viruses onto your hard drive. Fortunately, my teen son had taught himself enough about computers by then that he was able to fix it.
Agreeing with doschicos. Unless your son is housebound, he has already had opportunities to visit any sites he is interested in.
There are a lot of pros and cons with boarding schools, but the hardest one is that you (as a parent) have to let go of his day to day life. He won’t do a lot of things the way that you think he should, and you have to accept that as part of the maturing process.
Good luck 
Thank you so much, doschicos, austinmshauri, and college mom3717! I am surprised that I have replies this quickly. I will review student handbook with my son. I know that all public schools and libraries need to put filtering on their computers by law, but I just found that the boarding school my son goes does not do it. I am actually very surprised that students in the boarding school are not protected in the way public school students are. Is it common that boarding schools do not use filtering?
Internet filtering tends to occur at junior boarding schools (for middle school students) and therapeutic boarding schools, not at selective college preparatory boarding schools.
Whatever sites you block, he can get around if he really wants. Or find a similar site that can bypass the site.
One reason schools might not do it is that the filters are far from perfect, so you run into issues where legitimate sites are blocked. It becomes something that someone has to maintain–to unblock things and also to block things that should be. Some schools may just decide it’s not worth the trouble, and I can certainly see the argument the kids mature enough to be at boarding school should be mature enough not to need this type of protection
The two boarding schools that I know best do not block / filter. In a similar way to the private day schools, there are conversations with new students about the expectations of the school, school policy (and frankly, porn sites are less of an issue for the schools than streaming from dubious sites) and the honor code. One school does block all internet access at the very start of the year (except for an hour a day or something), to help encourage new boarding students to engage with the people around them.
It is also very possible that your son will have to sign an Internet users agreement that more clearly spells out what can and can’t be done.
But agree with others…if he is going to be living elsewhere (presumably this choice was made by both you,and him), you need to explain what your expectations are…and then hope for the best.
Students can access any sites they want on their smartphones so blocking, turning off wifi, etc., has become meaningless!
The schools do turn off the wifi at night, but many students use their cellphones as an internet hotspot to connect their laptops online.
If u are unable to accept that your teen will have unsupervised access to internet porn & video gaming, then boarding school for your child is not a good option to consider.
Yeah, much better for your kids to have unsupervised access to porn at their friends’ houses in your own neighborhood 
Some schools are starting to go in the direction of not turing internet off at night because of the smartphone access mentioned above. Exeter is an example.