By Susan Tebben
“Student disconnection” spurred on by mental health factors, disproportionate discipline and a lack of in-school supports plays its part in driving Ohio’s absenteeism rate, according to a new report from an Ohio think tank.
That absenteeism, and the contributing factors of it, can create “an entry point in the school-to-prison pipeline,” according to Policy Matters Ohio, who released a new study on the issue this month.
By J. Holly McCall and Sam Stockard
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into private prison company CoreCivic and Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, which it manages, over alleged civil rights violations.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announced the move Tuesday morning, citing a record of assaults, murders and understaffing at the facility since it opened in 2016.
“People are incarcerated at Trousdale Turner as punishment for their crimes, but in our legal system, punishment does not and cannot include violence and sexual abuse,” said Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
By Jacob Fischler
CHICAGO — As he did in his first speech to a Democratic National Convention 20 years ago, former President Barack Obama emphasized the connections binding Americans together and called for a more positive national atmosphere on the second night of this year’s convention Tuesday, while rallying Democrats to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.
By Robbie Sequeira
With eviction filings leaving a lasting mark on renters’ records, many states are reconsidering how much information landlords really need.
These filings can cast long shadows. Simply being named in an eviction complaint, regardless of the outcome, can severely limit future housing options and prolong housing insecurity, according to a recent University of Michigan study.
By Megan Henry
Gaggle, a Texas-based student safety technology company, is currently partnered with about 1,500 school districts across the country.
Ohio’s largest school district recently started using surveillance software on students’ devices.
Columbus City Schools partnered with Gaggle — a Texas-based student safety technology company that provides constant surveillance — at the end of last school year, district spokesperson Jacqueline Bryant said in an email.
“This is an added layer of security to ensure students are not visiting unapproved sites,” she said in an email. “Gaggle employs advanced technology and human insight to review students’ use of online tools 24/7/365 days a week and provides real-time analysis, swiftly flagging any potentially concerning behavior or content; this includes signs of self-harm, depression, substance abuse, cyberbullying, or other harmful situations.”
Gaggle is currently partnered with about 1,500 school districts across the country, but would not answer how many of those districts are in Ohio, Gaggle spokesperson Shelby Goldman said.
“We have a practice to not answer questions about specific school districts,” she said in an email.
Ohio’s three largest school districts — Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati — use Gaggle. Cleveland did not answer questions the Ohio Capital Journal sent about Gaggle.
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“Cincinnati Public Schools prioritizes the safety and well-being of its students and staff, and utilizes Gaggle to monitor threats for individual student safety and the safety of each school community,” according to the district. “The District monitors content on District-provided devices and applications based on specific language and phrases, generating trigger alerts for review, rather than continuous monitoring.”
Gaggle, which started in the 1990s, monitors school platforms such as Google Workspaces and Microsoft Office 365, but does not look at students’ personal email addresses or private social media accounts.
“Gaggle is an early warning system that identifies children in crisis so that schools can intervene before a tragedy happens,” Goldman said in an email. “Gaggle partners with school districts to help them monitor student activity on the technology (devices and accounts) provided by the school district.”
The company estimates it helped save 5,790 lives from 2018-23, according to their report from last fall.
“We believe finding the right balance between monitoring for safety purposes and protecting student privacy and confidentiality is important, and we’re committed to continuing to support districts in achieving both,” Goldman said in an email.
Gaggle uses Artificial Intelligence technology to spot things that could be an issue and a Human Safety Team reviews them before contacting the school.
“Our reviewers are looking at the context to determine if an item is related to an actual concern or maybe a simple reference to something that is harmless when in context,” Goldman said in an email.
Gaggle can flag things as early warning signs or an imminent threat, which is treated with a higher level of urgency. It altered Ohio school districts to 1,275 student incidents that required immediate intervention in 2021, according to an October 2022 Facebook post from Gaggle.
Columbus City Schools, which has about 47,000 students, is implementing Gaggle in middle and high schools. Students can’t opt out of it.
The district signed two contracts with Gaggle — the first for $58,492.40 in January and $99,180 in June, according to school board documents.
During the district’s Gaggle pilot from April 2022 to December 2023, 3,942 pieces of content were looked at by Gaggle’s Safety Team which led to 226 “actionable student safety concerns that were sent to Emergency Contacts,” according to a school board document.
Even though Sharon Kim’s two students are in elementary school and won’t yet be affected by the district’s Gaggle implementation, she is concerned about the district using surveillance technology.
“School should be a safe place for our kids,” Kim said. “They spend so much time in their lives at school, it should be a place where they feel safe, not where they feel like they’re being monitored and surveilled every single minute of the day. I really feel that this kind of surveillance is a huge hindrance to that.”
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By Marta Aldrich
Josh Arrowood carries his .22-caliber handgun most everywhere he goes in his rural Tennessee community — to church at Freewill Baptist, at the Food City store where he shops for groceries, and in the Greene County Courthouse, where he serves as a commissioner.
A new state law that passed this spring would let him, under certain conditions, carry the gun at his workplace, too — South Greene Middle School in Greeneville, where he teaches world history to sixth graders. And Arrowood, who’s had a handgun permit for 15 years, is open to doing so if it can provide an extra layer of security against a school shooting.
By Sameea Kamal
In summary
The Gaza war has divided California Democrats for months. Now, some of them are pushing the national party at the Chicago convention to support an arms embargo on Israel.
CHICAGO — What will Kamala Harris do about the Gaza war if she’s elected president? To some Californians watching, the best indicator might be what she’s doing now.
The vice president seemed to take a stronger stance against Israel’s military response since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 — calling for a ceasefire before President Joe Biden did and skipped Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress in July. After meeting him, said she pressed him for a ceasefire and pledged not to stay silent about the humanitarian crisis.
By Julia Conley
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What's expected to be the biggest protest march during this week's Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago Monday afternoon, with demonstrators demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris support an end to unconditional U.S. military support for Israel amid its assault on Gaza, now in its tenth month.
By Kevin Hardy
Thousands of state lawmakers are on the ballot, and control of some statehouses hangs in the balance.
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The presidential race gets the hype, but the nearly 6,000 state legislative races across the country in November’s elections could reshape power dynamics in some states.
While Republicans are primed to maintain their national advantage in statehouse control, several legislative chambers could flip, said Ben Williams, associate director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
By United Nation's News Centre
With the number of aid workers killed in the line of duty reaching record highs, the UN and partners are demanding greater accountability as countries commemorate World Humanitarian Day on Monday.
