Dear Akron Rams Parents,
Keeping students safe on their school-provided devices is of paramount importance to Akron Public Schools. In that regard, we would like to make you aware of a recent step our school has taken to monitor school-issued accounts. “Bark for Schools” is a powerful new monitoring service we are utilizing to help us better protect students both at school and at home.
When schools give students access to laptops and email accounts, an incredible world of learning opportunities open up, as well as potential dangers. Bark helps us monitor all of the content our students are creating, sharing, and sending through school-issued accounts. This helps us to detect potentially dangerous situations that students may be facing both in and out of school, including cyber-bullying, threats of violence, predatory advances, sexual content, and suicidal ideation.
We are asking parents to continue to help be responsible for monitoring their child’s activities and behavior when use is off school grounds. The school’s intention is to collaborate with our parents to help us with this technology in a means to head potential problems.
Bark provides all of the above for free as part of their give back program and is available to all K-12 schools and districts in the U.S. You can also enable Bark’s product for families, which monitors texts, email, YouTube and more than 24 social media platforms for potential safety concerns on your student’s personal accounts. In 2018, Bark detected 1.2 million instances of cyber-bullying, 140,000+ communications discussing self-harm or suicidal ideation, nearly 100 student conversations with sexual predators, and 51 potential acts of violence in schools.
If you would like more information, please contact us or visit the Bark for School website at: www.bark.us/schools. Thank you for helping us be safe online in real life.
Sincerely,
Akron Public Schools