The Lawrence school board agreed Monday to retain a software program that permits Internet use by students and teachers to be censored.

The board voted unanimously to stay with a system known as SquidGuard. It’s designed to block access on school district computers to Web sites related to pornography, gambling, hacking and illegal software downloads. SquidGuard has been tested in the district since April 16.

“This works, and it doesn’t cost anything. I’m tickled,” Supt. Randy Weseman said.

Public school districts must install by July 1 a “technology protection measure” to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act. While the law includes no funding to buy filters, other federal grants would be jeopardized if the district didn’t show it blocks child pornography, obscenity and other materials harmful to minors.

Mike Eltschinger, the district’s supervisor of instructional computing, recommended the board keep SquidGuard running on thousands of school computers.

He said a district committee has been sorting through software options. Some carry catchy names: Shelterbelt, N2H2, SideWinder, CYBERsitter, Surfcontrol, NetSweeper. And options studied by the committee range in cost from SquidGuard, which is free, to Symantec Web, which costs $39,500 annually.

“There are other vendors knocking down our door to sell us their product,” Eltschinger said.

Scott Morgan, the board’s vice president, said there’s no reason to spend money and time searching for alternatives if SquidGuard satisfies the federal government.

“I’d be very uninterested in spending money as long as this is complying with the statute,” he said.

Board member Jack Davidson voted for the motion despite reservations about filtering. “This is censorship. Let’s face it,” he said.

He said the intrusion was tolerable if the district established a reasonable review process for evaluating objections to what is filtered and what isn’t filtered.

The board’s meeting at district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive, wasn’t broadcast Monday on Sunflower Broadband’s channel 26. Damaged transmission wires must be replaced. A new fiber optic line is expected to improve sound and video quality of broadcasts.

In other business, the board:

 Spent $176,157 for new pre-algebra, algebra, French, German and Spanish textbooks and math teaching materials.

 Spent $59,665 to refinish gym floors at Pinckney School and Lawrence High School and replace rest-room partitions at Kennedy and Schwegler schools and Southwest Junior High School.

 Gave preliminary approval to a new transportation policy for a pay-to-ride school bus system.