Gaggle audits by Kansas' USD 497

Mr. Budington,
Per your request for public records, Lawrence Public Schools has no records related to the stated criteria of 1.) audits conducted on the software with regard to its efficacy or bias, either by USD 497 or by 3rd-party contractors, or 4.) records of attempts to investigate the claims of bias reported about the software by third parties.

The only record we have that may meet the stated criteria of "validating efficacy" in relationship to 2.) communications in an effort to validate the efficacy or bias of the software, and/or 3.) records of attempts to validate the claims of efficacy provided in Gaggle marketing material, is the attached summary of statistics of the number and categories of Gaggle alerts sent to our administration team since the school district put the software in place.

Note: Gaggle defines Questionable Content (QCON) as items that give cause for concern and need to be brought to the attention of an administrator, but do not represent an immediate threat to a student or others. These include cyberbullying, references to suicide and self-harm without evidence of an imminent threat, professional pornography, and graphic, violent, or sexual stories. Gaggle defines Possible Student Situations (PSS) as items that reveal an imminent threat to the student or others, including violence, suicide, pornography, or harmful family situations. Through Gaggle's service, these items were identified, temporarily blocked, and immediate contact was made with a school administrator for intervention.

Members of our administrative team reviewed the QCON alerts and immediately responded to the PSS alerts, including supporting students and their families in cases where there were threats of suicide, threats of violence toward others, potential nudity, drug/alcohol use, and/or potential concerns across multiple categories.

Gaggle has assisted our district in identifying children in crisis and children at risk of potentially unsafe behaviors, enabling our administrative and mental health teams to provide immediate support and intervention and foster a safer school environment for all students and staff. Proactively identifying students in crisis can make all the difference to our administrative team in providing timely support to students and their families and potentially saving lives.

The district has no examples of bias or records related to the stated criteria of "validating bias" per your request for 2.) communications in an effort to validate the efficacy or bias of the software.

The district forwarded your records request to Gaggle, which provided the response below.

Lawrence Public Schools considers this a completed response to your request.
Julie Boyle
Executive Director of Communications
Lawrence Public Schools
jboyle@usd497.org

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Amber Aplington-Johnson <amber@gaggle.net>
Date: Thu, Sep 12, 2024 at 8:26 AM

Due to the nature of these questions, we are unable to answer them fully because of concerns about the disclosure of intellectual property. We do, however, want to provide as much information as we can about the efficacy of our services. To that end, we have compiled some publicly available information that provides evidence of Gaggle's ability to effectively reduce the incidences of students' self-harm and suicide and detect early signs of student violence.

Those publically available resources are as follows:
*EdWeek's survey of educators who monitor, supervise the monitoring of, or oversee student safety and/or student online activity, including 723 drawn from a list of all/almost all school and district leaders in the nation and 209 Gaggle customers ( https://news.gaggle.net/state-of-student-safety?utm_campaign=e-signature.ssr.v2&utm_source=email&utm_medium=organic ). The study reported that 95% percent of Gaggle users say Gaggle helps keep their students safe from threats. Ninety-six percent of Gaggle users say Gaggle helps keep students safe specifically from suicide and/or self harm, and 92 percent of Gaggle users say the platform products their students from sexual predators. Users report that, over the two years studied, their student safety platforms have helped prevent a median of one suicide for every 200 students enrolled in their districts’ schools.

*A specific example from Michigan ( https://www.whec.com/top-news/app-helps-catch-michigan-man-who-sent-explicit-videos-to-11-year-old-girl/ ) where Gaggle prevented explicit videos sent by a sexual predator from reaching an 11-year-old student

A specific example from New York State ( https://cbs6albany.com/news/crisis-in-the-classroom/software-detects-threat-to-shoot-up-high-school-05-10-2023 )where Gaggle identified the threat of a school shooting

Amber Aplington-Johnson
(Pronouns: she, her, hers)
Director, Customer Success
Phone: (309) 661-6804
amber@gaggle.net
Gaggle