Gaggle’s student safety solution may have been instrumental in helping districts save the lives of over 640 students this school year. These students had plans to commit suicide within the next 24 hours. Gaggle has retained the majority of its subscribers, with 92 percent of districts renewing their Gaggle partnership year after year.
Recently, districts including Denver Public Schools, CO, Duval County Public Schools, FL, Cincinnati Public Schools, OH, and Polk County Public Schools, FL, along with multiple districts across the country, extended their partnerships with Gaggle.
“Ensuring the safety and well-being of our students is a task with many layers,” said Melissa Craven, Denver Public School’s Director of Emergency Management. “With almost 1,000,000 documents reviewed annually, we rest easy knowing Gaggle is monitoring our students online.”
For 20 years, Gaggle’s safety solutions have gone beyond internet security by helping districts support the social-emotional health of students and protecting against district liability.
“Gaggle is on the frontline protecting nearly 5 million students against cyberbullying, self-harm, offensive content and many other harmful situations,” said Jeff Patterson, Gaggle CEO. “In just the first half of this academic year, we alerted district-appointed emergency contacts of more than 50,000 safety concerns. We also alerted our customers to an additional 358,878 non-emergency documents and emails and blocked and reported over 1,700 instances of child pornography.”
The solution constantly scans accounts for harmful content, enabling educators to intervene in dangerous situations 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Gaggle’s safety management uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human safety experts to review students’ online activity. The solution works within Google’s G Suite, Microsoft Office 365, and the Canvas learning management system. An in-house team of trained professionals evaluates flagged content, categorizes incidents and determines their severity. Gaggle then alerts school officials of students showing signs of self-harm, depression, thoughts of suicide, substance abuse, cyberbullying and credible threats of violence against other students.
Additionally, Gaggle complies with state and national regulations when dealing with pornography involving minors. The company works directly with the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), eliminating schools’ burden of handling indecent material.
Schools partnering with Gaggle also have access to its safety tipline, SpeakUp, which integrates with G Suite for Education and Office 365. SpeakUp gives students an outlet to report situations like bullying, fights, students in crisis, and threats of violence.
