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California school district thinks it has the answer to bullying: monitoring its students online

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In the midst of U.S. citizens being outraged that their emails and text messages may have been read by their government, a California school district is taking a risk by electing to monitor its students.

Students in Glendale, California will need to watch what they write if they don’t want to be reprimanded for posting derogatory things to others online. The school district has hired an outside contractor, Geo Listening, to monitor the activities of its students, and look for not only signs of bullying, but also indications of a potential suicide about to happen.

CNN reports the district saw two of its students commit suicide in the past two years, prompting Glendale to look into ways to prevent these incidents from occurring. Superintendent Richard Sheehan said that the firm was hired on an interim basis last spring, and during that time, the firm flagged a student who was talking about ending his life.

“We were able to save a life,” Sheehan told CNN. “It’s just another avenue to open up a dialogue with parents about safety.”

The success of the trial in the spring, which cost the district $5,000, prompted them to continue the program for a full year. To get the service, Glendale Unified School District will be paying the contractor $40,500.

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Geo Listening will be monitoring student accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, watching for mentions of violence, drug use, bullying and plans to cut class. Unsurprisingly, this plan doesn’t come without its critics, with groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation accusing the school district of overstepping its boundaries.

“This is the government essentially hiring a contractor to stalk the social media of the kids,” said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the EFF, to CNN. “When the government – and public schools are part of the government – engages in any kind of line-crossing and to actually go and gather information about people away from school, that crosses a line.”

Still, the recent spate of high-profile suicides in both Canada and the United States gives some reason to believe that there is a purpose to monitoring social media for red flags about student behaviour. Just last week, a 12-year-old girl in Florida committed suicide after being bullied by her peers. The school said that they believe the problem had been resolved, as she had switched schools over the summer, but it appeared that the bullying had followed her online.

Most Canadians are familiar with the situation of Rehtaeh Parsons, who experienced a similar situation when explicit images of her were circulated online, inviting the torment of her peers. Despite changing schools, the bullying continued online and Parsons eventually committed suicide, which her parents believe was caused by her constant online torment.

It’s a delicate situation to mediate, between giving middle school and high school students their freedom, and making sure they’re protected when the situation calls for it. Some suggest that it should be the role of the parent to monitor the online actions of their children, but that doesn’t come without its faults, either. Perhaps having an outside third party keep an eye on the activities of students really is the answer.

What do you think, Right Click readers? Should schools be hiring people to monitor their students’ online activities?

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