I’m Eli Waissman, a freshman journalist,  and I chose to cover why Gaggle is used in our school and how some staff believe it keeps students safe online.

Gaggle is designed to alert school staff about possible online threats, helping prevent dangerous situations before they happen. Examples can be fights, death threats, suicide, drug use, and more. Vice Principal Mrs. Bucco explains that the goal is strictly for student protection and to prevent harmful situations, not to snoop. “Our primary purpose in this building is to make sure everyone has a safe learning environment,” she said. This shows how she believes Gaggle’s main purpose is to protect, and nothing else.

Although Gaggle can check school emails, chats, and Google Docs, it only applies to school accounts and school devices that families approve every year. “Technically, when you use a school device and school network, your parents sign off on a policy,” Mrs. Bucco said. She also emphasized that the school isn’t watching students constantly: “We’re not snooping. We’re never going through your things unless we have to — unless you give a reason to.”  

When Gaggle flags something, the vice principal is notified through either an email or a phone call, depending on the severity of the issue. Some days, there can be around five alerts, and most are false alarms. Even books assigned in English class can get flagged because of certain keywords.

But there are times when alerts matter. Mrs. Bucco described an incident where students were planning a fight after school. “There was talk about it,” she said. “We got notifications on this ‘chatter’ before school ended.” Staff stepped in before anyone got hurt.

She made it clear that the system isn’t meant to punish students. “It’s not a program out to get anyone,” she said. “I wouldn’t say there was ever any severe punishment.” Instead, Gaggle helps school staff check in on students who might need help or be at risk.

Supporters believe that even if most alerts turn out to be misunderstandings, stopping just one dangerous situation is worth it.

Many believe that Gaggle is a violation of privacy. What if someone wants to write about their own thoughts? Their own ideas? What if Gaggle is used in the wrong way? How could we possibly trust the staff to be true and use it for good? This is what many students currently wonder when Gaggle issues come to mind. 

This also brings into mind more questions, such as can the school use our cameras and microphones without our knowledge? (Mrs. Bucco responds with a clear “no.”)  If we have staff members viewing whatever they want, where exactly are the limitations? (As per Mrs. Bucco: Staff members cannot view your Google Drive or ‘whatever they want.’ Gaggle alerts a select few of us only when something concerning is flagged by their system.”) When do the restrictions end, and when do their freedoms begin? As a student of Cresskill, this is something I and possibly other students wonder about. Obviously, this is all a hypothetical “what if” scenario, but then again, every event stems from a “what if” question. The United States is known to have some rather shady and concerning characters in its education system. That’s just the sad truth of our reality. 

Many also might bring up the idea that people lie all the time. If someone was suicidal or harming others, they may not want to tell others when confronted. They’d hide it and deceive those who question them. That’s simply the most logical response that students do when they’re brought into difficult situations when they’re nervous. Gaggle can’t prevent this kind of lying.

There’s also the point that Cresskill wasn’t in all that bad of a condition when Gaggle didn’t exist. Schools in the past have been fine without Gaggle. Yes there are moments where the worst happens but Gaggle can’t guarantee that it fixes all the problems. That’s just not possible. 

Another thing to note is, as Mrs. Bucco said, they can’t detect things on personal accounts at home. Gaggle can’t stop what students write at home, which might be dangerous or concerning. Unfortunately this can’t be stopped unless we want our privacy to be threatened at home too. This kind of renders Gaggle pointless for protecting students unless they are at the school.

So now this all leads up to Cresskill thinking Gaggle sucks. It’s useless and just leads to students believing they’re being watched and have no privacy, as the quote in the cons point mentioned. But Gaggle surely can’t be all that bad, right? 

Events like searching for a bomb or suicide could be highly dangerous. This could let school faculty and the police be able to connect the dots between why the convicts chose to do what they did in a dangerous event. This could ensure harm is prevented before it happens, or help police get more evidence if something has already happened. 

Similar to what Eli mentioned about Mrs. Bucco, the school has already stopped a possible fight from dispersing and escalating. The school showed us an example of how they’ve used Gaggle to actually supervise accordingly and stop an event that could’ve been catastrophic. 

Thus showing us students that if someone in our school was actually planning something disastrous, we would have a better chance to stop it. We’d be able to act before the worst plays out. Monitoring ensures bullying is decreased and parents and staff can be notified. 

It is a safety precaution for the students and the staff. It can potentially stop crises and emergencies (as stated) that are unimaginable from playing out. 

Also, a point to mention is  that Cresskill High School staff don’t have total control over what Gaggle marks as dangerous or not. As Eli wrote in the pros, there were scenarios where texts in books were notified to the school. An example of a student being gaggled is Mika Wilner, “So I had this doc with my friends where me and my friends would text in it, and it was in 7th grade before Gaggle, we didn’t really use it anymore and at the end of 8th grade I opened it up and got gaggle without writing anything new. When I walked into their office my doc was on the screen with the words kiss, kys, kms, highlighted.”

The opposite of this can also occur. A student might do something that they shouldn’t have done but didn’t get gaggled and the teacher notified higher authorities instead. If we’re concerned about the staff, students must understand they don’t have all the power. But nonetheless there should still be understanding of what power and authority the school does have over students. 

So now what? What exactly do we do? Who do we side with? Turn our heads to? 

What is appropriate to say is that both sides should be accounted for. No, staff should not violate or use Gaggle without having a reason for it. Gaggle should only be used for good and to bring precaution to the students’ behaviors and mental and physical states. Gaggle should be used with a purpose and not carelessly violating students within the school building.

Gaggle doesn’t monitor a computer through the wifi; it monitors it through a Chrome extension that’s locked into the computer unless taken off by an administrator. Therefore, Gaggleis is locked onto the computer, and a student can’t remove it.

Recently, an anonymous student typed in something inappropriate into the ChatGPT search bar. He didn’t even enter it, just typed it. Not even 15 minutes later, he got brought into guidance. This shows Gaggle’s complete monitoring; not just on the computer’s history, but even the keys pressed.

Gaggle also gets triggered very easily. Like one student said, Gaggle got triggered over the word ‘kiss’. Anything slightly inappropriate can get a student in trouble, even if they accidentally type something like ‘kms’, Gaggle would be alerted.

Schools treat Gaggle like a ‘safety feature’, but it actually makes students feel unsafe and always watched. It limits freedom of speech or expression, and even personal thoughts, since you can’t even type something in your own doc without Gaggle knowing.

A lot of people also like to joke about possible offensive topics, like suicide. One student, who wanted to be kept anonymous, said, “I typed in I’m gonna kill myself’ in the search bar, joking, and got Gaggled and brought into guidance, interrupting my class time.”

 An anonymous student reflected this perspective when they explained how, “I think the concept is a little too much. I think it’s a violation of privacy. School was just fine without it, right? No one is that stupid to actually act on what they write. In my opinion, a student’s mental health and well-being should be the parents’ concerns, not the schools. ChatGPT should not be able to talk about this in the first place.”

Overall, I think Gaggle hurts students more than it helps them. It gives them a feeling they are always being watched. It also makes them feel uncomfortable typing anything on their computers, worried of getting brought into the office or guidance. This is why I think Gaggle makes a harmful environment for students in school.