Gaggle, a school surveillance and safety management software that has generated criticism since being introduced in Durham schools, will come under the microscope again at a school board meeting on May 18, when DPS will provide an update on the software\u2019s use.<\/p>\n
Originally piloted at six Durham schools during the 2021-2022 school year, Gaggle was expanded to the entire district on January 23. It now monitors all DPS students\u2019 (pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade) school laptops, emails and online accounts across Google, Microsoft and other suites or educational platforms like Canvas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Students, parents, educators and community members expressed concern about privacy, possible effects on student mental health, data sharing and costs at a February 9 Board of Education work session.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe have been entrusted with people\u2019s children\u2026and this is peeking in their diaries,\u201d Natalie Beyer, a DPS board member, said at the meeting. \u201cThis is an overreaction, an over-policing, an over-criminalization of children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In an emailed statement, DPS officials said they intend to share more information about the software at the May 18 meeting: \u201cWe expect a thorough conversation about the benefits and challenges of using a service such as Gaggle to identify risks to the health and safety of students and staff,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe recognize the privacy concerns that have been voiced and will share information about our use of the product to date.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle is part of the national <\/span>$3 billion<\/span><\/a> school security industry. According to its website, its \u201cmission is to ensure the safety and well-being of students and schools by leveraging people and technology.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As of 2022, Gaggle was used by more than <\/span>440,000 students<\/span><\/a> across 67 of North Carolina\u2019s 115 school districts. Neighboring Wake County <\/span>ended its Gaggle pilot program<\/span><\/a> \u2014 one of the first in the country \u2014 on June 30.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The service relies on artificial intelligence and human workers. Artificial intelligence detects buzzwords like \u201csuicide\u201d or \u201cgun,\u201d flags students who use them and sends a Gaggle alert to contracted third-party employees who determine whether the content is potentially problematic. If so, Gaggle employees then categorize the content as \u201cquestionable content\u201d or \u201cpossible student situations.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle defines as questionable content \u201citems that give cause for concern and need to be brought to the attention of an administrator but do not represent an immediate threat.\u201d Possible student situations are \u201citems that reveal an imminent threat to the student or others.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle was piloted in Durham last school year at City of Medicine Academy, Hillside New Tech High\/Durham School of Technology, Ignite! Online Academy, J D Clement Early College, Rogers-Herr Middle School and The School for Creative Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the course of the 2021-2022 pilot, Gaggle flagged 399 pieces of content \u2014 372 as \u201cquestionable content\u201d and 27 as \u201cpossible student situations.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle reports for every student incident must be released to parents upon request. Students cannot opt out from the software, and the company owns and manages student data over the lifetime of its agreements, attorney Carolyn Murchison said at the meeting. However, Gaggle is prohibited from selling or disseminating the information and the data reverts to DPS if the contract is terminated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n During the Durham pilot program, one LGBTQ student was outed to their family, Anne Sutkowi-Hemstreet, founder of Rainbow Collective for Change, a Durham initiative for \u201cLGBTQ+ families,\u201d said at the work session.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The student was flagged by the software for risk of self-harm, Sutkowi-Hemstreet said. Then a school counselor shared the entire Gaggle report with the student\u2019s parents, who were unsupportive of their child\u2019s identity. The parents declined the district\u2019s offer of mental health services for their child, she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am highlighting how dangerous it is to have your Gaggle software program in place when maybe you haven\u2019t thought about the unintended harms that it can cause LGBTQ students and other marginalized students,\u201d said Sutkowi-Hemstreet. \u201cI am also highlighting how dangerous it is to limit resources and necessary training for educators and other school professionals.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Parents, students and board members also expressed concern about Gaggle\u2019s \u201cpossible student situation\u201d (PSS) alert process. During school hours, school officials are first notified of such situations. If Gaggle issues an alert after school hours, school and district officials (three DPS officials, the student\u2019s school principal and others within the school) are alerted and attempt to contact parents or guardians. If unable to make contact with guardians, officials call 911, provide the student\u2019s address and ask officers to execute a \u201cmental health welfare check.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the board was discussing welfare checks and PSS alerts, two DPS staffers, Eva Howard and Joy Malone, announced that, earlier in the meeting, they had received a Gaggle alert that flagged a student for risk of self-harm, based upon a suicide letter. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to reach parents, Malone and Howard \u201ccontacted law enforcement to conduct a welfare check\u201d at the student\u2019s home, where the student was deemed safe, Howard said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we can\u2019t contact a parent, we have to contact law enforcement,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n Training is another point of controversy. DPS educators received four days of Gaggle training from January 17-20 before Gaggle was implemented across the district on January 23. In the first seven days of use, Gaggle flagged 6,578 pieces of content on DPS computers. Students and families were informed of the new software via a January 26 robocall, which stated that Gaggle \u201cmonitors student district accounts to scan for harmful content and alert us when students show signs of self-harm, cyberbullying, credible threats of violence, or other harmful situations.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the work session, board member Natalie Beyer read aloud a letter concerning training sent to her from a DPS teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe training I received from the Gaggle company representative did not include any direction for DPS educators and administrators about how to respond to the flood of documents, emails and photos that would appear in a few short days,\u201d the letter said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n During the first week of using Gaggle, the teacher saw personal emails, recreational creative writing and photographs. \u201cNone of these things were meant for my eyes; none of my students had any reason to believe I would be viewing them,\u201d the teacher wrote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle Senior Vice President of Operations Helen Durkac sought to dispel fears and quell concerns about the software\u2019s methods and potential effects on children\u2019s development. Since its founding in 1999, Gaggle has constantly been working to perfect its \u201cbank\u201d of words and phrases to flag, she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat makes me very proud of the work that Gaggle has done and the partnership we have,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gaggle\u2019s services will cost the district some $440,000 over two years, using grant money awarded in 2021 by the state from its federal pandemic relief money.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSurely, we can spend the same money in far less Draconian ways,\u201d Ron Baron, a DPS parent, said. \u201cA few more social workers would be nice.\u201d Board members Emily Chavez and Alexandra Valladares and Board Chair Bettina Umstead expressed similar concern over drawing attention and funding away from in-person, relationship-based counseling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur focus at the district is how we build relationships and connections with people so that students feel that there\u2019s an adult in their school that they can talk to. I don\u2019t want [Gaggle\u2019s implementation] to feel like a replacement of that either\u2026It doesn\u2019t sit quite right with me,\u201d Umstead said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The upcoming discussion on May 18 will be important, because the district\u2019s agreement with Gaggle expires June 30. The board will need to vote before then on whether to renew the contract.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would like to see us revisit this item in June to get a sense of this longer pilot, where we are,\u201d Umstead said. \u201cWe need to understand if we\u2019re supporting students\u2019 needs or [if there are] any ways that we might be causing harm.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n CORRECTION, May 19 – This article has been updated. The original version incorrectly said that Anne Sutkowi-Hemstreet was a DPS parent.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gaggle, a school surveillance and safety management software that has generated criticism since being introduced in Durham schools, will come under the microscope again at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[124],"class_list":["post-10343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools","tag-durham-public-schools","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n