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New Technology Helping to Keep Students Safe
Description
It is designed to help keep students safe in and outside of school. On this episode of the Supercast, we talk about new technology called “Bark,” which helps to detect signs of things like cyberbullying, suicidal ideation and threats of school violence. Listen and find out how this new technology is already proving successful in saving lives in Jordan School District.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It's a program designed to help keep students safe in and outside of school. On this episode of the Supercast, we talk about new technology called BARK, which helps to detect signs of things like cyber bullying, suicidal ideation, and threats of school violence. Listen, and find out how this new technology is already proving successful in saving lives in Jordan School District. We're here today with Angie Rasmussen, our new specialist working with the BARK program here in Jordan School District. Angie, thanks for joining us.
Angie Rasmussen:
Thanks for having me.
Anthony Godfrey:
Most people don't know what the BARK program is. Let's just start off by having you talk just generally about what it's designed to do.
Angie Rasmussen:
Okay. So it is a software that we have monitoring Google accounts in Jordan School District. So parents can buy it themselves to monitor their students on their electronic devices, but we use it for our school purposes to help flag students who may need some extra support.
Anthony Godfrey:
Just as a clarification for our listeners. I want to make sure that everyone understands that this is only monitoring of school accounts. So chats, emails, documents that are submitted through Google docs, that sort of thing, right?
Angie Rasmussen:
Correct. Yes, so it has to be through their my.jordandistrict.org Google account.
Anthony Godfrey:
We have accounts for students in elementary, middle and high schools so really this reaches students of all ages.
Angie Rasmussen:
Yes, it does.
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me a little bit about how the BARK program works.
Angie Rasmussen:
So it has artificial intelligence that will screen or flag anything in these Google documents, chats, emails, that could be concerning. There's different categories like bullying or suicidal ideation, self-harm, violence, among others. It will categorize the alert and it will also say if it's severe or non-severe. Then there is an imminent category, but those are flagged as severe and then they become phone calls as well.
Anthony Godfrey:
So when you go through the program, tell us a little bit about what your interaction is with the alerts and how the process works.
Angie Rasmussen:
So they will take a snippet of what they flag as concerning, and sometimes it's highlighted with certain areas that they're trying to show me, this is what we flagged. Then I can look at it and see the context. I can see if it's two people talking to each other in an email or in a chat and get an idea of what maybe the conversation is. A lot of Google docs are used as journal entries or they will chat in real time with each other on a Google doc, the students will. It’s a way to communicate, so it will come in those formats. A lot of times if they're expressing something that could be concerning to adults, that we want to make those connections with kids and help them to prevent anything from becoming a further situation that either leads to violence or additional suicidal ideation.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now tell me again, the categories were non-severe severe and imminent, correct?
Angie Rasmussen:
Yes, that's correct.
Anthony Godfrey:
Can you tell us what the process is for dealing with issues in all three categories?
Angie Rasmussen: