Schools are tasked with the complex challenge of not only meeting students' academic needs but also proactively addressing their holistic well-being, including mental health and safety. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveals only 48% of public schools effectively provide mental health services to all students in need, a decline of nearly 10 percentage points from previous years. Key obstacles include insufficient mental health professional staffing (55%), inadequate funding (54%), and limited access to licensed professionals (49%). This alarming situation highlights the urgent need for proactive prevention strategies. Technology, like GoGuardian Beacon, offers a promising solution by enhancing school safety and enabling early intervention by identifying warning signs and providing timely support.
GoGuardian Beacon, our award-winning digital safety solution honored as the "Best Digital Safety Solution" at the 2024 CODiE Awards, enables you to customize who, how, and when alerts are received more than any other K-12 safety tool. It’s why we are constantly speaking with schools big and small about how we can assist them in the most important job of all: protecting learners of all ages, backgrounds, and needs.
An educator and student-centered approach
Beacon is built on the feedback we’ve received over ten years of working with schools to ensure students all over the country receive the help they need, exactly when they need it.
At the heart of any new feature we release is educator feedback. We work with teachers, admins, IT professionals, and counselors in various grade levels and school sizes to ensure we actively listen to their needs.
“I believe GoGuardian Beacon has saved lives,” emphasizes Dave Peterson, Information Technology Coordinator at Sunnyside School District in Washington. "School mental health professionals have enormous caseloads and can’t possibly monitor every student. GoGuardian Beacon alerts are sent to them as soon the system detects at-risk behavior, so staff can intervene when needed most."
Building on our latest insights, we’ve introduced innovative features that allow districts to act swiftly and effectively, tailored to their unique needs. These recent enhancements ensure that, regardless of staff size, whether a district is large or small, they have the tools to respond promptly where it matters most. Let’s look at these features and how they can benefit your district.
Enhanced monitoring of Gmail
We’ve expanded our Gmail monitoring capabilities, reducing alert volume by up to 20% while enhancing accuracy. This allows schools to monitor student emails across devices, which is crucial for early intervention in potentially harmful situations. To take advantage of these enhanced monitoring features, please ensure you enable the API in your settings.
Notifying multiple responders simultaneously
In direct response to customer feedback, Beacon now supports notifying multiple staff members simultaneously during alerts, ensuring swift action and support for students in distress.
Notifying multiple responders per escalation enables schools to customize their response to fit seamlessly with their current processes. For example, a designated response team can be notified, and if none of them can respond, the notification can then be sent to building administrators. If building administrators are unable to respond, district-level personnel can then be alerted. This decreases the number of alerts and potential noise while ensuring the right people are notified promptly.
After-hours notification list
Users can now customize escalation tiers for after-school and weekend responders, ensuring alerts reach the right personnel outside regular hours, when immediate intervention is crucial. Separate during-school and after-school notification lists enable districts to be mindful of staff time away from work while also ensuring the safety of students.
Adjustable notification settings
You can now customize notification frequency and intensity according to school phases and specific needs, which helps minimize alert fatigue and improve responsiveness. By tailoring these settings, teams can better prioritize their responses and reduce the number of non-urgent reminders. This way, they can focus on more pressing alerts while still addressing less urgent concerns.
Snoozing active planning alerts
Counselors and super users can now temporarily pause alerts related to specific content, providing flexibility in managing alerts generated by student activities. We know schools understand their students best, so enabling users to “snooze” alerts related to a specific search or document that has been reviewed and found not to be concerning empowers users to prevent redundant alerts. Additionally, it's important to highlight this feature is now available for Active Planning as well, offering even more control.
Beacon Dashboard analytics
Users can now gain insights into deployment and alert data across school districts, enabling informed decision-making and proactive safety measures.
The Beacon Dashboard enables districts to clearly quantify the number and types of alerts generated during specified periods. This data can be utilized to adjust staffing, identify buildings in need of additional support, and identify trends over time.
Coming soon - more ways to customize
Soon, Beacon users will be able to receive an email summary of alerts generated after hours with the new After-Hours Email Summary feature. Additionally, you'll soon be able to detect threats and violence in Gmail by enabling enhanced Gmail monitoring.
Why customization matters: Adapting to diverse district needs
Every student deserves a safe space to learn, and that is why GoGuardian Beacon was created. Each feature isn’t just functional; it’s impactful. For instance, the ability to customize notification settings allows districts to adapt based on their own unique challenges. In larger districts, this might mean adjusting alerts to reach multiple campuses effectively, while in rural settings, it could mean optimizing for limited staff availability during off-hours.
As we look ahead, our commitment remains steadfast: to empower schools with tools that not only meet but exceed their safety needs, no matter their size or unique needs. If you need assistance or have questions, our dedicated support team is here to help. Together, we can ensure GoGuardian Beacon is configured to optimize success in protecting every student, every day.
If you’re ready to ensure your students are protected at every step of their learning journey, request a demo today.
