OK, I'm probably going to be hated by some, loved by others for this. but if you want to get around the school firewall. Go to
www.stayinvisible.com and view proxies. Find you a proxy server that uses port 80, and if possible something near you. you can check by looking at the whois. if you're simply too lazy to check those, just pick the first one you see in USA, if you're from USA. and then click Tools on IE explorer, internet options, click the connections tab, click lan settings, and put in the IP adress of the proxy server, and port 80. 8080 works, but usually, you have more luck with proxey servers that use port 80 since that is the default port for web browsing.