Fueled by fears of school shootings, the market has grown rapidly for technologies that monitor students through official school emails and chats
by Lois Beckett
Part 5 - Shifts in culture
Part 5 - Shifts in culture
School officials say that their primary motivation for using surveillance technology is the chance to save a student’s life. But schools are monitoring students’ digital documents in real time for a wide range of content they see as problematic, from swear words to nude images and pornography to cyberbullying to evidence of drug and alcohol use.
In Weld county, Colorado, a student emailed a teacher that she heard two boys were going to smoke weed in a bathroom, Hernandez, the student services and safety director, said. Gaggle immediately alerted school officials: “Within four minutes of her sending this email, the troops had deployed,” she said.
In Weld county, Colorado, a student emailed a teacher that she heard two boys were going to smoke weed in a bathroom, Hernandez, the student services and safety director, said. Gaggle immediately alerted school officials: “Within four minutes of her sending this email, the troops had deployed,” she said.
Gaggle also automatically sends students a scolding email any time they use a profanity.
A few school districts have chosen not to send students Gaggle’s warnings about swear words, some because they’re concerned that if students are reminded that they’re being monitored, “the children will then resort to other tools to communicate, and they’ll miss the life-threatening issues they could have intervened in,” McCullough, the Gaggle spokesperson, said.
McCullough said these fears were misplaced, and that the company had seen little evidence that the students being surveilled on school devices had switched to other forms of communication.
A few school districts have chosen not to send students Gaggle’s warnings about swear words, some because they’re concerned that if students are reminded that they’re being monitored, “the children will then resort to other tools to communicate, and they’ll miss the life-threatening issues they could have intervened in,” McCullough, the Gaggle spokesperson, said.
McCullough said these fears were misplaced, and that the company had seen little evidence that the students being surveilled on school devices had switched to other forms of communication.
“Kids who have used us in their districts for years and years still use these tools to communicate their innermost thoughts, because they’re hoping that their cries for help are answered, and they’re not comfortable communicating the way adults communicate, face-to-face,” McCullough said.
O’Malley, the South Carolina superintendent whose district uses Gaggle, had a different impression of how kids in his district had reacted to the new surveillance.
“Once the kids know they’re being Gaggled, they’re being watched 24-7, they tend to be more proactive in watching what they do,” O’Malley said.
He said he had heard students in the district using Gaggle, the surveillance company’s name, as a verb: “We can’t do that. We’re being Gaggled.”
“Once the kids know they’re being Gaggled, they’re being watched 24-7, they tend to be more proactive in watching what they do,” O’Malley said.
He said he had heard students in the district using Gaggle, the surveillance company’s name, as a verb: “We can’t do that. We’re being Gaggled.”
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