The Shawano School District will be using a new system to oversee all computer devices owned by it after the Shawano School Board approved a deal with Gaggle Safety Management on Dec. 11.
Using the services is expected to cost $20,778 for the first year and about $18,000 annually after that. The system is expected to flag concerning content on school-issued accounts for review and block potentially harmful content. That flagged content is reviewed by at least two Gaggle safety experts and, in severe situations, the district is contacted about potential harm from the content.
The funding for the initial purchase will be coming from the district’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.
Superintendent Kurt Krizan reported that the district had previously used the system called Bark to watch over computers and issue alerts whenever there were incidents of online bullying, cheating and more. Krizan said the system at the time had been free, but its use had been suspended by “a previous administration.”
The district was planning to use Bark again but learned the system was now going to cost. Eric Brunner, the district’s technology director, said the cost to use Bark would be $13.50 per student annually, while the cost for Gaggle would be $9 per student.
The idea came from Shawano Community High School principal Matt Raduechel, who had previously used Gaggle while being an administrator in the Wausau School District.
Gaggle claims it has analyzed more than 6.7 billion student emails, chats and computer files during the 2021-22 school year and found over 454,000 that required district attention, with one in three of those referencing suicide or self-harm.
Board member John Arens expressed concern about technology being used to monitor students while having policies that keeps them from utilizing artificial intelligence in their work.
“We’re going to buy some software that’s going to monitor students … and yet we can’t allow our students to use machine learning to maybe enhance their education?” Arens said. “I think the argument goes both ways on machine learning. It’s not like this is an emergency, and we need this.”
Raduechel said that the district shouldn’t wait until there is an emergency to set up the Gaggle system.
“When we talk about student safety, there’s no less than a dozen if not more in my seven years as an AP (associate principal) at John Muir Middle School where we had suicidal ideations that were caught by the Gaggle platform,” Raduechel said, noting there were several instances where he was contacted early in the morning about the information flagged by the system and contacted law enforcement to do a wellness check on the students. “That’s something that we’re not able to do with Bark or anything that we’re currently doing.”
Besides suicide, Gaggle can pick up on student searches on weaponry and bullying, according to Raduechel. Any attempts to access pornography, especially involving children, will be blocked, he said.
“Sometimes, students are researching a video game, but other times, they’re talking about weaponry or something like that,” Raduechel said.
Arens noted that instances where the board has had to go into closed session about student expulsions over threatening behavior has not come from the school-issued devices but from their personal cellphones, which Gaggle would not be able to monitor unless the students access their school accounts.
Madeline Schroth, a student representative on the school board, questioned how using foul language on a student device would be considered a safety issue.
Foul language alone would not be an issue in single instances, according to Raduechel, but pervasive use, especially if it’s a threatening nature, would be cause for alarm.
Board member Al Pyatskowit expressed concern that the surveillance is being put in after the devices have already been checked out to students, and notifications aren’t going out to families. Pyatskowit also criticized how the matter was going to the full board and bypassing the review of the district’s finance committee.
“We talked about this last summer that we don’t want to have a situation where we say, ‘You have to vote on this tonight right away,’” Pyatskowit said.
Despite board members’ concerns, the expenditure on Gaggle passed unanimously.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
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