AUSTIN (KXAN) — In the wake of the pandemic, a company contracted by school districts to monitor students’ online activity said it’s seen the number of alarming incidents involving Texas students go up significantly.

Gaggle, whose clients include Austin ISD, Round Rock ISD, and Eanes ISD, said it flagged and reported 43,000 incidents of bullying, self-harm, suicide ideations and school violence in Texas last school year, an increase of 225% over the previous school year.

The examples provided to KXAN were often gut-wrenching insights into children in crisis.

“I want to die, nobody cares that I’m hanging on by a thread,” wrote one student.

Another wrote, “one of my friends made a group chat telling me not to go to school, and sent us a picture of a gun telling us his plan was to shoot up the school.”

Gaggle CEO Jeff Patterson said when the company sees an emergency situation like this, it initiates a process to alert the district involved.

“We make a phone call to the emergency contacts at the district, to make sure that kid is getting help,” Patterson said.

Gaggle is tasked with overseeing activity of school-issued devices and software in 1,700 districts nationwide, covering 5.5 million students. It does not look at private email accounts or social media.

Patterson said that while the pandemic brought more awareness to what kids are doing online, the issue has been around ever since kids started using the internet.

“The need didn’t change — it just grew tremendously,” he said. “Even before the pandemic, our kids were suffering a mental health crisis.”

If you or someone you know needs support or advice, you can go online to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to chat with a counselor, call 1-800-273-8255 or text 741741 to be connected to someone at the Crisis Text Line. These resources are available 24/7.

If a student or parent sees something concerning, they are encouraged to report it to a teacher or administrator. Some school districts also have a reporting system set up, usually anonymous, which people can use. Round Rock ISD, for example, uses the Anonymous Alerts app.