California School District Hires Firm To Monitor Students' Social Media

An anonymous reader writes "A suburban Los Angeles school district is taking a novel approach to tackling the problem of cyber-bullying. It's paying a company to snoop on students' social media pages. '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. Though critics liken the monitoring to government stalking, school officials and their contractor say the purpose is student safety. As classes began this fall, the district awarded the contract after it earlier paid the firm, Geo Listening, $5,000 last spring to conduct a pilot project monitoring 9,000 students at three high schools and a middle school. 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.'"

Comments

Again, the ends justify the means?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[kylemonger]

It's not about safety as much as it is about ass covering. The schools have been driven to this. Parents won't keep their children off the Internet. But when a child is bullied into committing suicide the school gets sued because they are a convenient target and because the law requires that children be educated, which for most people means sending children to public school.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[gd2shoe]

Though critics liken the monitoring to government stalking, school officials and their contractor say the purpose is student safety.

Uh, yes, and yes? The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[fahrbot-bot]

Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?

You must be new here - I mean to the planet - welcome. Watch your back, we're a narrow-minded, short-sighted, fucked-up species.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[interkin3tic]

I'm skeptical it's not just paranoia and ignorance on the part of the schools. Kids aren't going to stop being horrible to one another, kids aren't going to realize that high school drama isn't anything to kill yourself over, parents aren't going to stop grieving when their kids die, and lawyers aren't going to stop taking advantage of their grief and schools' funds just because schools hired a guy to watch them. Use common sense and do what's right (IE not violating student's rights and wasting money).

You'll get sued the same amount either way.

Re: Again, the ends justify the means?

[briancox2]

I remember one day, not so long ago really, a school was there to focus on a purpose. And that was to educate. They didn't get into all of these other side purposes which distract them and disperse their ability to focus.

When you think everything is your responsibility, you will not be doing well at the thing that really is your responsibility. You can bank on that.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[ewhenn]

It's all about ass-covering.... until it backfires. Seriously, they are a school, not the Internet police. On top of that, I think court wise this could actually make them *more* vulnerable. Say the firm they hire *does* tell them about something, and action isn't taken. Now the school had a written report sent to the administrators and didn't do enough, at least that's how it would be framed by a suing attorney. I think that scenario is a lot more damning than simply taking the position that: "We are a school, we are responsible to educate kids, not keep track of their Facebook updates".

Re: Again, the ends justify the means?

[meerling]

Not to mention going way outside their area.
If it's not being done on/with school computers, they shouldn't have anything to do with it.
They are supposed to be educators, not full time nannies/social police.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did parents stop being the ones considered responsible for their child's well-being?

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Belial6]

No, it isn't about ass covering. This move creates far more liability than it removes. This is about the school system pushing farther and farther into the role of parent in an attempt to increase the size of their bureaucracy and thus the amount of funding they get. This school has just declared that it is their responsiblility to stop kids from commuting suicide.

No doubt they will soon be complaining that they are held responsible for the responsibilities they have demanded.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Nyder]

When did parents stop being the ones considered responsible for their child's well-being?

Blame the internet. See before the internet, your parent knew you did fucked up shit, but didn't really have any proof. Now that it's posted on fb, twitter, and whatever else is cool, parents are aware of what their kids are getting up to. So they want to blame the school, otherwise they feel that fault would be there own.

As for bullying, we are a culture of being bullies. It's in our movies, our tv shows, it's how business get bigger, it's how America treats the rest of the world. By being a bully. It's what we teach our kids, that you have to be mean to get ahead. That you can get anyone to do what you want by threatening them in some way, either physical, mental, and/or economically. So yes, kids are quick, they pick up on what adults do, and they copy it.

But hey, it's the internet age, we can blame everyone else for our failures.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Seumas]

Doesn't matter. We've now had enough generations of public education breeding conformity into people that they have little or no expectation of privacy and almost no knowledge of their protected liberties.

Think of it this way: You and I probably remember a time when you didn't even need ID to get on a domestic flight and you could walk someone right up to their gate and see them off.

Anyone born in the last two or so decades won't remember this. They'll be familiar with an experience where you are treated like a criminal by a bunch of low-wage thugs with plastic badges who grope you and inspect you . . . and who also expand their scope to far outside the airport, to nearly any public place. Kids born today will only know a world where everything they do any time and anywhere is monitored, documented, archived, shared, and used against them by their government. If this is what they grow up around, what will they *allow* to change during their time, that kids born in five or ten years will, then, consider normal for *them*?

All of this originates with the expectations and demands set at home and school. Authority must be followed. Questions are not allowed. Critical thinking is discouraged. Individualism and standing up for yourself makes you a target.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[BlueStrat]

Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?

Human nature being what it is, that's something that people never learn until they suddenly wake up one day and find *they've* just been deemed an "obstacle" to some government "end" which must be removed. Of course by then it's a little too late.

People are shit. People in government are shit on warp drive with afterburners. Why should or would anyone think allowing corrupt, power-hungry, arrogant, and greedy government shits (yes, even your guys) more and more powers and more and more of *our* money to use against us is a good idea?

Want to know what would go a LONG ways towards fixing lots of things wrong with both the government overstepping and the economy and make the rest not directly affected easier to rein in?

Look up the US "Depression of 1920-21" (without quotes). President Warren G. Harding slashed government size and spending by nearly half. This was a leading factor that put the "roar" in the "Roaring Twenties" that saw fantastic growth and economic expansion.

Having a much smaller government without endless government buildings filled full of bureaucrats trying to micro-regulate everything under the sun, and that doesn't control as much wealth or distort the markets so badly, makes it much easier for citizens to assure accountability and make corruption that much harder to hide.

Hard for some seriously-disturbed government hack to build a "Star Trek"-esque "Information Dominance Center" and spy on everyone including Granny and her nine cats if the agency has just barely enough resources and manpower to perform it's limited and accountably-authorized duties in a legal and constitutional manner and still meet payroll.

Just like fire, one must limit the amount of "fuel" (powers, scope, size, budgets, etc) one allows any government, or like fire, one will be consumed when it grows out of control as we are seeing happen in the US.

Starve the beast. Before it eats everything and everyone. This isn't a partisan political issue. It's a civil rights issue for every US citizen regardless of ideology, race, religion, or politics. If the US goes totalitarian, it's going to also be a huge problem for the rest of the world.

Not to Godwin, but imagine what a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mussolini could and would do with the natural and economic resources of the US and it's military/industrial/intelligence complex.

That's what the world has to look forward to if things don't dramatically change in the US, and soon, because that's the direction the US is heading rapidly.

Strat

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Anonymous Coward]

What rights are you speaking of here? Is anyone getting wiretapped?

If you refer to Facebook et al., it's not illegal to view what someone has been dumb enough to post on the internet for all to view. For any 'spying' to occur, the pursuant must actually gain access to information disclosed from a non-public source. Refusing to cover your ears while someone shouts at the top of their lungs does not fall into this category.
Also, $40k per year is not much compared to what a lawsuit will cost. Perhaps over 50 years it might compare, but there is also the added benefit of one or more children being alive (which may be important to the related people).
In the end, I would rather see the affected communities spend their money on prevention of suicide than defense in a suicide-related lawsuit.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[MaskedSlacker]

Maybe this has changed in the United States of Fascism, but every where else in the world, if someone is hired to stalk you 24/7, that is generally considered spying. Even if they only observe you when you're in public.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[drinkypoo]

The only thing that will stop kids from being horrible to one another is if it's taken seriously when it happens. This is a first step towards that. If kids are held accountable for their bullying of other students, it will stop. THAT is what is missing. I was regularly bullied and my reports always fell on deaf ears because it usually came from jocks and I went to jock schools; Del Mar Middle School, Branciforte Jr. Jigh, and Harbor High in Santa Cruz County. These are all bastions of child abuse. The former of them even kicked me out for winning a fight, finally.

Public school is child abuse. Even if your child does well there, they'll be learning lessons that make the world a worse place.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Phreakiture]

Irrelevant. Everything that is on facebook was put there by somebody who chose to put it there. If they put it on public display, then they chose to put it on public display. It's published, therefore it is public. This public information is available to anybody and everybody. As long as the school does not require the students to friend them or turn over passwords, what's the issue?

That said, this could teach students two very important things: reputation management and subterfuge. These are good things to know in an emergent surveillance state.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be hilarious if people start creating social media accounts to post made up shit using the names of the students.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Oligonicella]

I agree with you except for your first statement. It's only been in the last two. Prior to that, schools did not act like this. I was there.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Charliemopps]

I agree on the ass-covering but the bulling IS the schools fault. I was very much a victim of it in highschool. I was "The guy" that got bullied. Every school has one. The kids knew it, the teachers knew it, the principle knew it. For some reason the adults in charged seemed to thing it was somehow my fault. I was hyperactive (annoying) and I didn't fight back... the perfect target. I reached a tipping point late in my senior year and proceeded to beat the shit out of anyone that even remotely tried to bully me. That's when I learned the truth... The school didn't do anything to you for assaulting another student. I took one bully by the back of the head and repeatedly smashed his face into a urinal and the gym teacher walked in and said "come on guys, knock it off" that was it...

To this day I still cannot fathom how my children are safer in a biker bar than they are a public school. If you punch someone in a bar, the police are called and you go to jail. If you do it in a public school, at worst, you spend some time in the principles office or get suspended. Physical violence in a public school should involve the police... every time.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[drinkypoo]

This is the problem with the progressive mindset right here. All of the other steps dont count.

All what other steps? No school I've ever attended ever did anything meaningful, or indeed anything at all, to stop bullying. In fact, the faculty regularly encouraged and enabled it.

Re:Again, the ends justify the means?

[Jesus_666]

I'm sorry for you but that doesn't apply to all schools.

The school I went to for fifth and sixth class was a cesspool of violence. It's also an underfunded school in a village with massive integration problems. That school is where teachers' careers go to die. The faculty isn't useful for anything and they don't enter the schoolyard during recess because they both don't give a crap and fear the children.

After that I came to a school where the faculty actually cares. We had bullying in our class. It greatly reduced in intensity when the headmaster showed up, gave the bully a dressing-down in front of the class and had him spend recess walking over the schoolyard while holding hands with the bully-ee - and promised that he'd monitor the situation and react appropriately in the future. (It helps that the now-retired headmaster was respected by the students on account of being generally awesome.)

Schools can be horrible with bullying but not all of them are. Both of the ones I attended are public; one just happens to be in a social hotspot and the other one isn't and has a really engaged faculty.

Simply Awful

[b4upoo]

Observation outside the school for criminal activities is a police function. The last thing we need is another police like agency that calls itself part of a school system.

Re:Simply Awful

[AHuxley]

Was 2010 forgotten?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/velocity/2010/02/18/teachers-spy-on-student-via-webcam/
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/22/1814248/school-spying-scandal-gets-even-more-bizarre

Re:Simply Awful

[tftp]

Seriously, why don't you just fix the fucked up environment that school's create

You can fix that with one and only one change: students must be able to pick and choose who they want - and, most importantly, don't want - to interact with. Someone hurt you, or is scary - banish him from your presence, for a while or forever. This will be self-regulating, unless the student wants to be all alone (and, actually, that is fine as well.) Those bans must work everywhere - in class, and in halls, and in the street. (Too much to ask for, but that's the spec.)

The whole problem is that (a) students have no say in who they are working with, *AND* (b) they have no means to control behavior of others. Adults have both of those options. I don't know why so many ancient writers say that childhood is the best time of anyone's life ... in my opinion, it's the worst time (aside from deathbed, perhaps.) Children have no rights; everyone is a superior; noncompliance is punished; complaints are not accepted; crimes can be committed against you with no recourse... Hell, as soon as I was done with school I ran away and never looked back. The adult world is simply heaven, compared to the wolfpack-like society of children where only physical strength and ferocity matter.

Re:Simply Awful

[Sique]

Schools do need to kick out the small minority of incorrigible troublemakers who aren't there to learn anyway, and who ruin the learning environment for those who are.

The problem is that the main troublemakers are often quite intelligent and good pupils with a lot of friends at school. You have to be in a position of power to be able to continiously harass people without getting into trouble yourself. It's not the big redhaired stepchild, who mainly harasses other children, it's often the captain of the football team, the winner of the literacy contest or the class speaker. What you consider the actual trouble is the angry and helpless reaction of the weaker children, which then get punished for being angry and helpless.

Re:Simply Awful

[drinkypoo]

The problem is that the main troublemakers are often quite intelligent and good pupils with a lot of friends at school. You have to be in a position of power to be able to continiously harass people without getting into trouble yourself.

Well, they're often in a position of power, but they're rarely intelligent or good pupils.

It's not the big redhaired stepchild, who mainly harasses other children, it's often the captain of the football team, the winner of the literacy contest or the class speaker.

The TEACHERS are the biggest bullies, and their disrespect for the students set the tone. When the kids see them treat you with disrespect, they know they can do the same. And when they get away with it, it becomes open season. Every single time I bothered to report abuse against me, and we're talking about physical abuse that often left a mark, not just the ubiquitous emotional abuse, it was ignored. That sends a message to the children that they should be bullies all their lives.

Regardless, the only people who were ever kind to me in junior high to high school were the academic achievers. But then, I went to jock schools.

Please...

[not_surt]

Won't somebody think of the tax-payers.

Can't complain about privacey

[Anonymous Coward]

As creepy as this is, if you broadcast your life in the clear using social media then you relay are in no position to complain about people listening too you!

Re:Can't complain about privacey

[Anonymous Coward]

If the school district was paying $40k for a guy to drive around in a van and watch your children in "public" places through binoculars, you'd be grabbing a torch and pitchfork and demanding the principal's head on a plate.

But instead they're paying $40k to monitor your children's "public" conversations online, and you think its A-OK.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Re:Can't complain about privacey

[Oligonicella]

Speaking of false analogies....

We are not complaining about some Joe on the street reading your 24/7 postings and getting a chuckle or posting a vitriol laden response. We are talking about a governmental agency reading them and then intruding into your life with government backing if *they* deem what you post is unacceptable to them.

You say NSA snooping is bad and yet a school's snooping isn't. Yet both are doing the exact same thing and claiming it's "for you protection".

By the way, your using all caps and my using bold and italic are appeals to emotion.

pfftt

[djupedal]

This will last until the next suicide happens as a result of overlooked cyber-bullying there, with a lawsuit asking why the consultants missed it. The District will put the burden on the consultants, penalties will force them into bankruptcy and no one will try it ever again.

Or - the consultants will over react, causing too many false alarms and lawsuits for false accusations, with the same effect.

Account info?

[fahrbot-bot]

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.

From TFA:

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.

And how does the school district get the student account information? I know if they had asked me for that info (if social media, nay the Internet, existed when I was in HS) I would have replied, "fuck off." Hell, I'd give that same answer to that same question to my employer now.

Re:Account info?

[UnknowingFool]

And how does the school district get the student account information? I know if they had asked me for that info (if social media, nay the Internet, existed when I was in HS) I would have replied, "fuck off." Hell, I'd give that same answer to that same question to my employer now.

If you post on a public site like Facebook where you go to high school, I would say that's fair game for everyone. This isn't like the NSA snooping on private conversations. If you post it in public, you can't then say someone can't read your posts to track you.

Re:Account info?

[hedwards]

Probably the same way that the US Navy got my contact information to harass me when I was in high school. The school just gets authority to collect it and to hell with your wishes. Compared with the years of harassment and insults from the jack asses at the Navy, this is of somewhat lesser concern.

But, it's still a concern, the last thing we need is to condition kids to think that it's normal for schools to spy on your behavior outside of school hours.

Re:Account info?

[Bite The Pillow]

And how does the school district get the student account information?

With $40K and a geo-tag, I could screen-scrape enough facebook and twitter to identify 90 percent of the students who are at any given school (who use social media) given:

1) Any seed account , even the principal or superintendant, or someone else at that school
2) A list of student names - and it gets easier with ages
3) Students often post unfiltered information publically, including the names of their sports teams
4) Students are often not even aware that there is an option to mark things private, or that postings are visible to anyone but their friends
5) Friend or follow lists will be highly correlated with school population, meaning I can spider from every new account
6) A specially crafted mascot account for each school can be used, to friend or follow students susceptible to joining things they don't understand
7) A list of trigger words that flag comments for review by a person
8) A social sciences college student who needs money enough to read the postings of 13 to 18 year olds that have been flagged to see if it should go on a report
9) Another college student interested in sociology or psychology willing to vet and approve the automated matches, and look for more that software missed

Oh man, it goes on. It's quite simple, really, and I for one wish I had thought of offering such a service. The kids don't have to volunteer one bit of information directly to the monitoring company - they will volunteer it all indirectly, unknowingly, and will be very surprised when the school calls mom and dad.

I'd still have most of that $40K, and with a story like this I just upped my client list by an order of magnitude, parental outrage be damned.

Re:Account info?

[ShanghaiBill]

And how does the school district get the student account information?

1. Create a fake account using the picture of a really cute 16 year old girl claiming to be new at the school.
2. Request to friend a few boys. 99% of them will accept.
3. Follow the friends of friends network to connect to everyone else.
In a few days, you should have every student with a Facebook account. My daughter is in high school. She has over 600 Facebook friends, and she will just automatically accept any friend request from any other student at her school. I think this is pretty typical for HS students.

Re:Account info?

[Savage-Rabbit]

Probably the same way that the US Navy got my contact information to harass me when I was in high school. The school just gets authority to collect it and to hell with your wishes. Compared with the years of harassment and insults from the jack asses at the Navy, this is of somewhat lesser concern.

The US military has been known to procure it's harassment lists from professional private sector list brokers.

But, it's still a concern, the last thing we need is to condition kids to think that it's normal for schools to spy on your behavior outside of school hours.

This is one of those damned if you do damned if you don't situations. You can criticize this all you want and you are right, watching student's social media is plain creepy. However, after the next time some deranged student walks into a school and kills 20+ of his fellow students you will also be able to criticize the school district quite justifiably. After all, this student had been blogging about his intentions on social media for weeks and nobody took any notice. Why weren't the school authorities and law enforcement reading those Facebook posts and doing something about it? I suppose then that the manner and extent of the monitoring would tend to matter. Apparently these guys are using keyword searches of a list of social media accounts to flagtop potentially troubled students for monitoring by professionals (presumably: psychiatrists, ex. cops, ex. social workers). The problem from my POW is not so much the monitoring as what they are searching for. Are they just flagging suicidal students, potentially borderline postal students or bullying victims? Or are they going North Korean on the kids and flagging things that are well within freedom of speech boundaries such as: criticising religion, criticizing the war in Iraq, criticizing the school system or will I be getting calls from the school district because my daughter is blogging about Wiccanism and that offends somebodys christian fundamentalist sensibilities? That would be both wrong and considerably more creepy than just trying to prevent suicides, bullying and shootings. I don't see an easy alternative to this other than doing no monitoring at all in which case you should not criticize the school district if they miss some blog post by a student who then goes off and does something tragic.

Let's also monitor the teachers and admins

[Anonymous Coward]

Sickening, but welcome to the age of the Surveillance State.

How about if tax dollars were used to follow this district's administrators, teachers and board members?

That is not a rhetorical joke.

How much porn are these "public servants" watching? What are their thoughts? How are they spending their time? Maybe we should do something about it. Let's call a meeting.

Fascist Scumbags.

Re:Let's also monitor the teachers and admins

[fazig]

Besides of wasted tax money, there's a distinct difference.
In your example these "public servants" do things in private and keep them private. But children using Social Media choose to reveal their activities and thoughts to the public, by definition, aren't keeping these things private.
As long as these companies don't 'hack' the Social Media accounts of the children to get access to 'private' information, I don't see the problem. The same thing applies to public servants as well. Anyone can access public information anyway.

This might even reduce cyber-bullying but won't do anything about the cause of bullying itself. It's more of a quick fix to soothe the guilty conscience.

Re:Let's also monitor the teachers and admins

[drinkypoo]

The problem is social networks are fundamentally anti-social

What? Yeah, and the problem with water is that it's dry, and the problem with light is that it's dark. Wait, what?

You don't change the opinions you hold at school/the office, but you probably do express them less loudly if at all compared to at the political rally. Trouble is you have one FaceSpace profile that follows you everywhere.

That's not a problem in cases like this, because these people aren't using back doors. They depend on your post visibility, which you (nominally) control. You're 0 for 2.

Kids and adults for that matter, need a place to blow off steam, so they don't take that rage back to school with them, and so they can conform while there. If the school is going to effectively follow kids home, it's going to creat new problems.

Again, since you control post visibility, this is more like the school watching the kids with binoculars and telescopes from the school roof. What the kids do in public can be seen. If they have the intelligence to hide it just a little bit, it won't show up.

You're 0 for 3, talking complete bullshit.

Let the trolling commence!

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before the kids start trolling the hell out of this just for the lulz? The possibilities are endless.
 

Re:Let the trolling commence!

[AHuxley]

Rework some of the "Glorious Leader" texts?
The great school is an outstanding educational and sporting centre, brilliant teachers who teach the capitalist system along the golden road to full employment.

Good!

[NoKaOi]

I see a major positive side effect of this: If students know that school officials are monitoring their social media accounts, then maybe (at lease the brighter ones) will learn to be a little more conscious of the stupid stuff that they post.

Re:Good!

[knorthern knight]

> I see a major positive side effect of this: If students know that school officials
> are monitoring their social media accounts, then maybe (at lease the brighter
> ones) will learn to be a little more conscious of the stupid stuff that they post.

And the really bright ones may decide not to join Facebook/Twitter/whatever. Actually, maybe some good may come out of this after all.

They're spending EDUCATION money on THAT?

[MarkvW]

Just when you think that school boards can't get any more stupid and administrator-heavy, somebody comes up with a real whopper.

Soaking the taxpayer

[NadNad]

Monitoring about 56% more students costs 8x as much? Gotta love no-bid contracts.

This won't end well

[hyades1]

How long will it take for the students to find out this is going on? My bet is that they already know.

So how long will it be before a student who isn't thrilled with having adults e-stalk them decides to leave a "private" comment about how Principal Lovegood is just a bit too handsy?

blame 'budget cuts'

[globaljustin]

The schools have been driven to this

By entrepreneurs eager to cash-in on wealthy school districts and the helicopter parents.

This is privacy invasion plain and simple.

I used to be a high school social studies teacher. *EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.

You can blame all you want but in a capitalist society if you pay teachers like union bus drivers you are going to get what you pay for...teachers will still come but they won't stay...paying teachers poorly just burns out idealistic, well-prepared teachers.

capitalism = you get what you pay teachers

that's the end of this whole discussion...

Re:blame 'budget cuts'

[globaljustin]

*EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.

Great, but this problem is happening outside the classroom.

no, every school-related problem is solvable in school by a properly trained teacher...

to falsify my point, if a kid was getting bullied by neighborhood kids who don't attend his school and they don't have bruises or speak up to a teacher about it then yes that would be a scenario that wouldn't be solvable by the teacher...

what you people have to understand is that teachers (and probation officers) are the catch-alls of our society...you **wouldn't believe** the problems a standard public school teacher is expected and trained to handle unless you've worked in the system

the thing is, the training works but the teachers get burt out

Re:blame 'budget cuts'

[pspahn]

In my case, properly trained means a four hour session twice a year practicing CPI, along with using the methods it speaks of daily.

It's easy for you to sit on the sidelines and call someone out for a meaningless capitalization typo, isn't it? In fact, in a discussion about bullying, you decide the best thing to add is more bullying.

And people wonder where these kids learn it from...

Re:blame 'budget cuts'

[TWiTfan]

And if they're going to hire a firm to monitor student online social activities, they got ripped off at $40,500. Creepy Larry would have done it for free.

Post a gun ... get an inquiry

[Caladrius]

FROM TFA:
In another recent incident, a student posted a photo of what appeared to be a gun, and a subsequent inquiry determined the gun was fake, Sheehan said. Still, school administrators spoke with the parents of the student, who wasn't disciplined, the superintendent said. "We had to educate the student on the dangers" of posting such photos, Sheehan said. "He was a good kid. ... It had a good ending."

Errr ... so ... if it had not been a fake gun, then he'd have been ??? What if he is a hunter? Likes to shoot targets with a bb gun? Had posted a picture of his dad cleaning a legally owned handgun?? You know they'd have done something - otherwise, if he shows up and shoots ppl they'd be crucified by lawsuits.

It is now dangerous to post completely legal things .. this won't end well.

Re:Private messages, and privacy controls

[bickerdyke]

It's the PUBLIC bullying and defamation that's problematic. if mullying would consist only of private messages, it could easily be blocked. The problem is the false, but public facebook profile that tells everyone what you like to do with sheep and dolphins.

And $40k wouldn't even hire an single, additional teacher, so much for "nice ressources".

Busy monitoring nothing

[jjdacl]

Surely any mildly tech savvy student has locked down the security settings on their facebook account so that non-friends can't see anything?