Welcome to "Fridays with Chief Trawick," a public service resource presented by Reimagined Campus Security, LLC in partnership with Gaggle. This week's topic is technology, specifically Gaggle's Safety Management for monitoring student activity on school-provided devices.
Although the pandemic appears to be behind us, many of us are still navigating our own social and emotional feelings. With the rise in student suicide rates, it’s more important than ever to have the proper tools in place to recognize when students are experiencing a crisis. Proper tools provide us with the ability to rapidly respond to students and their families with valuable information and resources to help those experiencing a crisis. This is where technology—specifically, Gaggle Safety Management—can assist.
Gaggle Safety Management is a tool that monitors students' school-provided accounts and identifies those who are in crisis. The goal is to ensure the safety and well-being of students by combining technology with real human review. Gaggle helps intercept key indicators (words and phrases) that may reveal a student’s intent to cause harm to themselves or others. The most common incident types are violence towards others, suicide & self-harm, profanity & vulgar language, nudity & sexual content, drugs & alcohol, harassment, and other inappropriate content.
Prior to the pandemic, and according to the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Washington, DC; 2014:
- 749,000 students were victims of violence;
- 1,000,000 students were threatened with a weapon on school property;
- 5% of school teachers reported that they had been physically attacked by a student from their school;
- 876,000 students were afraid of attack or harm at school;
- 250,000 students seriously considered attempting suicide; and
- 1,000,000 students were harassed, threatened, or subject to other forms of cyberbullying.
What’s more alarming is that in the most recent Indicators of School Crime and Safety report (2022), we’ve learned that school shootings have reached the highest number—93 total— in decades. Therefore, we must do all we can, including the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to help keep our students safe. Schools that do this have reported that it makes a significant difference in combating school violence. In a 2022 report released by EdWeek Research Center, nearly 100 percent of student safety platform users said their programs make schools safer by helping educators identify potential threats before anyone is harmed.
I believe that early interception of information, and recognition of a crisis will lead to greater intervention outcomes.
I look forward to you continuing along with me on this crusade for the next installment of this series.
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