Bypass restrictive web filters / firewalls

I work for a company (summer camp) that bases itself in schools for the summer months. The summer camp uses YouSendIt to store and share camper's media projects. Some schools' networks prevent access to the site ( and I'm looking for the best way to get around it.

We have asked the schools to temporarily whitelist the URL, but this probably won't be done any time soon and isn't an entirely scalable solution.

We have, with some success, used Tor to bypass the firewall, but it chokes the bandwidth so that YouSendIt becomes unusable.

What is the best way for us to enable access to these sites without (a) relying on the school districts' intervention and (b) choking the bandwidth? Am I right in saying that firewalls can't filter SSL connections?

Thank you in advance.

A lot depends on what they are using to filter their web traffic.  Although firewalls may not be able to inspect the contents of an SSL encrypted session, some web filters do SSL inspection by proxying the traffic.  However, if a specific destination is blocked by IP or domain name, it probably won't matter what protocol you attempt to use to hit it.  I should also mention that bypassing the protections that the school district has in place is a bad idea.  Not only will you potentially get yourself into hot water with the school district's IT department, but you may be violating policy and/or a web usage agreement (if they had you sign one).

Thank you for the message. Your concern is one that we share so we have been working closely and have been very open with the associated IT departments (however, they remain reluctant to change their firewall settings).