Alaska District Faces Parent Concerns about Student Online Monitoring Head-on

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/11/19

When an Alaska school district heard complaints about a new system for monitoring student online behavior, it fine-tuned the settings and reached out to its community to address the concerns. Juneau School District had launched Bark for Schools, a free program for checking high school student accounts on G Suite and Office 365.

According to the company, Bark's service is used by 1,600 schools for performing web filtering and monitoring of emails, chats and files on school-issued accounts. Bark uses algorithms to watch student activity for keywords and then attempts to define context before issuing an alert. When activities take place that are alarming, the service sends alerts to school personnel and parents who have opted in for follow-up. A paid parent version allows families to do the same with their own students' online activities outside of school.

During a contentious October school board meeting, several parents and students protested the use of the program. Their concerns included collection of student information by a for-profit company, lack of student privacy, delays in how quickly potential incidents were relayed to administrators and "spamming" of families by the company that produces Bark. Parents also expressed alarm at the possibility that any student "flags" generated by the software could "impact the children later in life."

Rather than backing off of usage, the school responded to the complaints by compiling a frequently-asked questions document, which it provided to families and posted on its website, and requested updates to the implementation. For example, a 30-day data hold was shortened to 15 days; a profanity filter was eliminated; the "severity" filter was set to be less sensitive to generate fewer "false positives." And district Superintendent Bridget Weiss reached out to those who spoke up during the meeting to discuss their fears and the proposed changes. Also, Bark stopped sending out unsolicited emails to parents about various premium services unless they opted into the messages.

As the FAQ explained, "Bark for Schools adds an important layer to our student safety systems. The district is providing students with a digital education environment and is obligated to monitor it like other school environments. There are incidents of unlawful or unsafe behavior in student accounts every year, and until now we had to rely on others to report it. A new level of safety is now available to the district through Bark for Schools. Students sign an annual internet use agreement that outlines they will not engage in harmful or illegal activities on our system. This tool helps monitors that agreement."