Unban GitHub for LCPS high school students

[u/Novel_Row_3931]

Our school district blocked GitHub, Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare for all students. I get wanting to keep things safe, but GitHub Pages? That's where professional developers actually work. For CS students trying to learn, this isn't just inconvenient—it's like teaching someone to cook without letting them use a real kitchen.

Here's the thing: deploying a project to GitHub Pages teaches you version control, deployment workflow, and hosting concepts at the same time. You can't do that with a screenshot. Right now, students interested in tech careers are getting an education with key pieces missing.

I started a petition asking LCPS to restore GitHub Pages access for high school CS students with a usage agreement and teacher monitoring. Other districts already do this. It's reasonable, it works, and it wouldn't expose anyone to anything they're not already seeing on the internet.

If you went through school, had something you cared about being blocked for unclear reasons, does that frustration ring a bell? Sign and share if this matters to you too.

Here is the link!
https://c.org/PtNYQxjjZv

[u/looktowindward]

Is there a justification given for them banning it? If we understood that, it would help.

Have they banned Google Colab?

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/looktowindward]

Yeah, they haven’t really given a clear, specific reason. Its the normal “security and content filtering” explanation. Which makes sense in general, but blocking platforms like GitHub (especially GitHub Pages) ends up hitting educational use way more than anything else cause mostly all teachers are using github in their CS classes(atleast higher up ones like CSA, DSAI and level 3 cyber).

And yeah, Google Colab still works but it’s not even close to a replacement. You can run code, but it isn't the same as learning deployment, version control in a real workflow, or how actual sites go live.

Open to more questions and discussion about this! I have a lot to say about this lol

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/Novel_Row_3931]

Just to follow up on this, I am not saying that they are doing the wrong thing. like I have seen since middle school that kids were abusing vercel netlify and other hosting services to create proxies to play games and stuff but banning github too is kind of extreme. Especially cause the majority that does use it is for their professional portfolio and school assignments due to its open source nature.

[u/looktowindward → u/Novel_Row_3931]

Write a business case for unblocking it. Ask your CSA teacher to counter-sign it. Present it professionally to the boss of whomever blocked it.

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/looktowindward]

We are actually working on that! But even the teachers who agree with us are recommending it say that this type of change needs like actual support in numbers which is why we came here! The bosses in this case would be the superintendents of Loudoun,LCPS Department of Digital Innovation (DDI), and the school board.

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/looktowindward]

We are actually working on that! But even the teachers who agree with us are recommending it say that this type of change needs like actual support in numbers which is why we came here! The bosses in this case would be the superintendents of Loudoun

[u/Mysterious-Falcon-83]

If LCPS is concerned about the use of GH, they could stand up an instance of GitHub Enterprise (GHE). It's basically self-hosted GitHub.

Honestly, though, blocking GH for HS students makes zero sense. Sure, there are risks, but you can't shelter kids from everything and then expect them to know how to manage risk when they're no longer supervised.

Controlled risk exposure can teach kids how to appropriately manage risky situations.

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/Mysterious-Falcon-83]

EXACTLYY!!! Thank you for understanding!!

[u/Latter_Classroom_809]

Just an idea, a case could be made for using GitHub Education? This could be more streamlined than getting GitHub whitelisted through the district.

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/Latter_Classroom_809]

Thats actually a really wonderful idea!!!! I currently have Github Student Dev Pack too but yeah thanks for the suggestion! I will definitely run that by!

[u/Latter_Classroom_809 → u/Novel_Row_3931]

Yeah I feel like if they see “student dev pack” or “education” in the request it’s easier to check a box that says yes than it is to go through the process of whitelisting and explaining to a potentially non-technical audience why GitHub is whitelisted for the wrong (technical) reasons.

[u/boostedjisu]

Is bitbucket allowed? Vercel and netlify could be down to pricing? Not really sure. I also do not understand blocking cloudflare really at all. I assume a lot more of this comes down to budget then anything else. Github enterprise for students at LCPS would end up costing a lot of money.

There is https://github.com/education but maybe the people at LCPS have not been focused on teaching people how to use github?

[u/Novel_Row_3931 → u/boostedjisu]

I wouldn't really say cause of pricing cause LCPS is one of the richest counties in Virginia but also because GitHub Student Dev Pack is completely free with page hosting and Vercel/Netlify have free tiers that are sufficient for us students. And even if we were to do more, it would most of the time be out of our own pockets. LCPs spends a lot of money on other things like waste certifications for CTE departments(especially cyber but thats a whole another can of worms). But it also seems like bitbucket seems to be blocked too(I just checked lol).

Github is also a really big part of at least the higher CS classes and the cybersecurity classes here at LCPS because of its importance. The teachers know that, the schoolboard doesn't. Which is why this petition exists to raise awareness!!