Gaggle Speaks

Ideas, news, and advice for K-12 educators and administrators to help create safe learning environments.

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Written by Lisa Railton
on November 3, 2020

Like many schools and districts across the country, Duval County Public Schools found itself in unfamiliar territory when the pandemic resulted in building closures. While the district was already using Gaggle for Office 365 when the pandemic hit, Duval now needed to ensure users’ safety as students and educators navigated this “new normal” of learning and teaching from home.


 

“With COVID-19, we had to transition our brick-and-mortar safety and security over to the digital/online environment,” said Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene. “We can’t just allow the online learning space to be like the wild, Wild West,” she added. “It needs to be a space that’s respected and no different than it would be for the student who is in a physical classroom.”

The district began using Microsoft Teams in conjunction with Office 365 for remote learners, turning to Gaggle for help upholding its commitment to student safety and security. “Although we had already been using Gaggle for years for Office 365 and OneDrive, we then added Gaggle monitoring for Teams as well,” said Jim Culbert, the district’s CIO.

According to Culbert, the district noticed a dramatic increase in screen time and online communications when the learning moved to the virtual environment. This increase was logical and warranted, but the lack of face-to-face content with teachers and with one another presented new challenges for the district. Gaggle is helping to fill in some of those gaps by alerting the district when potential problems and emotional wellness issues arise among its large student base.

“Where there is always a school safety officer walking the hallways in our physical school, Gaggle serves as that protector online,” said Culbert. Read the full success story to learn more about how this large Florida district protects its 130,000 students using Gaggle’s student safety platform.

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