Student monitoring software draws scrutiny
Summary
It now monitors all DPS students’ (pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade) school laptops, emails and online accounts across Google, Microsoft and other suites or educational platforms like Canvas. Artificial intelligence detects buzzwords like “suicide” or “gun,” flags students who use them and sends a Gaggle alert to contracted third-party employees who determine whether the content is potentially problematic. If unable to make contact with guardians, officials call 911, provide the student’s address and ask officers to execute a “mental health welfare check.” As the board was discussing welfare checks and PSS alerts, two DPS staffers, Eva Howard and Joy Malone, announced that, earlier in the meeting, they had received a Gaggle alert that flagged a student for risk of self-harm, based upon a suicide letter. “The training I received from the Gaggle company representative did not include any direction for DPS educators and administrators about how to respond to the flood of documents, emails and photos that would appear in a few short days,” the letter said. Gaggle Senior Vice President of Operations Helen Durkac sought to dispel fears and quell concerns about the software’s methods and potential effects on children’s development.