A California School District has stepped up in hiring a firm to monitor the social media activity of students within their district to help prevent cyber bullying and more, hit the jump for more details!
The Glendale School District have officially hired a firm that will be looking closely to the social media activity of students within the districts middle and high schools.
After conducting a pilot project, where the school districts paid $5,000 for the firm to surveillance the social media of three schools: “Among the results was a successful intervention with a student “who was speaking of ending his life” on his social media, said Chris Frydrych, CEO of the firm”
“The district in Glendale, California, is paying $40,500 to a firm to monitor and report on 14,000 middle and high school students’ posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media for one year”
The intervention came into place after the school experienced two suicides in two years amongst students as well as inappropriate picture posts on social media accounts from students within the school districts. One student allegedly posted a picture of himself with a gun, later to find out that the gun was fake.
“We were able to save a life,” Superintendent Richard Sheehan said, adding the two recent suicides weren’t outside the norm for school districts. “It’s just another avenue to open up a dialogue with parents about safety.”
“Frydrych’s firm scours the social media postings of Glendale students aged 13 and older — the age at which parental permission isn’t required for the school’s contracted monitoring — and sends a daily report to principals on which students’ comments could be causes for concern, Frydrych said”
“The company won’t disclose its methods and practices in gathering the students’ messages, but it does use key words in its searches. The firm also didn’t disclose how it confirms the youths are indeed students of the district”
Personally I feel like this a necessary step that should be taken amongst schools nation wide! With the amount of teenage deaths linked to cyber bullying, there needs to be a close eye on how teenagers are interacting with each other off school premises, kudos to them! What are your thoughts?
