photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Lawrence school district offices building, located at 110 McDonald Dr., is pictured in May 2025.

Updated at 7:36 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025

Although the Lawrence school district has stopped using Gaggle, it is now using a different student monitoring software — and its use was not voted on by board members or mentioned in court documents filed Monday.

The school district implemented Gaggle in 2023 on its devices to hone in on on keywords within students’ emails and online accounts that could indicate “concerning behavior” when a student uses them, such as “suicide,” “self-harm,” “bomb” or “gun.” It also scans pictures, videos, attachments and links via a process that combines artificial intelligence and human moderators.

A lawsuit was filed against the school district for its use of the software, and in recent court documents filed on Monday, the district told the court it has stopped using Gaggle software on its devices to monitor students, as the Journal-World reported. However, the district is utilizing a similar software called ManagedMethods.

According to a district memo shared with the Journal-World, the school district is implementing the ManagedMethods software to be in compliance with “laws such as Children’s Internet Protection Act, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and state student-privacy requirements by controlling access, monitoring for violent threats, and protecting student data.”

The memo said the district was in the “implementation phase of this platform” and a district-level monitoring team is overseeing the platform during this fall semester rollout, managing alerts, and coordinating communication with schools as needed.

The district did not mention in the court documents about now using ManagedMethods, and it did not get added to the school board’s agenda for a vote during one of their public meetings. The Journal-World asked Superintendent Jeanice Swift why ManagedMethods wasn’t mentioned in court documents, and she did not answer the question.

Gaggle’s contract ended in summer 2025, and it has not been renewed for the 2025-2026 school year. School board president GR Gordon-Ross told the Journal-World in an email that district administration selected ManagedMethods as a “lower-cost tool.”

Swift said in an email that as part of the continuing effort to evaluate and streamline contracts with vendors and identify cost savings, the district implemented ManagedMethods, and the change resulted in a cost savings of approximately $38,700 annually.

Gordon-Ross said because the new contract with ManagedMethods did not exceed the district’s threshold requiring board approval, which are purchases more than $20,000, it did not need to be placed on the board’s agenda for a vote. Swift said the contract cost $14,700 for the school year.

Gordon-Ross added that, “Board members were kept apprised during the process,” but he did elaborate further. He said the administration kept the board updated through their regular communication channels as they moved forward with ManagedMethods.

Even though ManagedMethods and Gaggle both aim to keep K-12 students safe online, they focus on different aspects of digital safety.

ManagedMethods is primarily a cloud application security and data‐loss prevention platform for school districts, especially for cloud suites like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. It can also detect concerning behavior. Meanwhile, Gaggle focuses on monitoring student safety and well‐being – such as cyberbullying, self‐harm and violence threats – by scanning school-issued accounts with AI and human review.

The school district uses ManagedMethods solely to monitor activity within the Google Suite environment — including Google Docs, Gmail, and Drive. The monitoring is limited to detecting self-harm concerns, violent or threatening content, and images deemed inappropriate, such as those that are lewd or pornographic, according to the memo.

Gaggle has received criticism in the district since its implementation a few years ago. The lawsuit by nine current and former students from Lawrence and Free State High Schools claims that the Lawrence school district violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights by conducting unlawful searches of digital files created by student journalists.

According to the lawsuit, the software has allegedly identified and removed journalistic materials such as publication drafts, emails, and collaborative documents. It also claims the software has deleted student assignments and mistakenly flagged an art student’s photography project as “child pornography.”

The Journal-World asked Gordon-Ross and Swift if they believe the decision on signing a contract with ManagedMethods should have been brought before the board for a vote due to the public’s interest in the software. Swift did not answer the question.

“It fell within the administration’s existing authority, both financially and operationally,” Gordon-Ross said. “As with many tools and services used every day in our schools, our role is to stay informed and hold the administration accountable for ensuring student safety and appropriate use.”