Chicken. Hot chocolate. Celebrities. 

These are all words that are blocked from being looked up on a school computer—if you try to Google them, all that comes up is an iBoss error page. While we all have our woes of not being able to look at photos of fowl, an issue lies in the fact that while Issaquah School District is trying to prevent students from looking at inappropriate material by filtering what we can look at online with keywords (“chick”, “hot” and “celeb”, respectively), they can inadvertently turn students away from looking up material that can help them learn. 

Every year, students in AP Government participate in a mock election—complete with campaigns, news outlets, and interest groups. One of these is the National Rifle Association (NRA), an organization with a vested interest in protecting gun rights. 

However, when a student looked up the NRA to learn more about the organization, it alarmed the security system, leading to actions from administrators. 

“I used a school laptop to search ‘NRA’, just the acronym, and later that day, I got a note saying to go to the office immediately. I went to Miss Armstrong, and then she sat me down and asked if I had done any suspicious activity recently,” senior Connor Schild said, “I told her no, and she asked me if I was sure, because I looked up the word NRA. After I explained that it was for a class project, she just said it was like a trigger word—a sensitive thing in school basically.”

The computers that students use at school track the different searches that students make, and flag anything that may raise alarms—including searches about firearms. 

“As administrators, if we receive information about certain topics, there’s often something there that we should follow up with a student or a family about,” Vice-Principal Erin Armstrong said. 

The information that can raise alarms for administrators can come from a multitude of places: searches made on school computers, tips from community members, or even documents stored on Issaquah School District (ISD) Office 365 accounts. 

“Gaggle is another tool that our district has, it’s a tool that basically looks at students’ Office 365 accounts, and scans for keywords related to say self-harm, abuse, or other things that can leave students in dangerous situations. We get messages if something that a student has created or saved triggers any of those concerns,” Armstrong said. 

Threats of violence, including bullets found at Issaquah High School and Skyline High School, are cause for concern across ISD, leading to the increased importance of monitoring students’ online activity. With harm towards students, including gun violence and self-harm, becoming more prevalent, many think that the level of monitoring that schools have in place is helpful in keeping students safe.

“I think [online monitoring] has opened up some positive conversations. It’s hard for parents to know when their student is struggling, they want to help, but they don’t know how to help. Sometimes it just brings things to light that need to be discussed,” Armstrong said, “I know, it probably feels a little uncomfortable at the time, like an invasion of privacy. That anonymity that maybe existed a little bit more when I was in high school, really doesn’t exist in the same way now.”

However, some believe that the level of monitoring that takes place in the ISD is unnecessary, leading to students feeling like it’s impeding their ability to learn. 

“I don’t really feel safer with the monitoring because I think just ‘NRA’ being flagged is unnecessary. Flag searches such as ‘guns for sale’, that’s necessary. It’s reassuring to know that they do monitor searches, but maybe they need to be more specific on exactly what they’re monitoring,” Schild said. 

“I think that if what I looked up was more threatening, then definitely, that should have been flagged. But the NRA is an actual group that millions of people have joined—and clearly something that is important to be educated on,” Schild said. 

No matter what students think about being monitored on District devices, it’s likely not to go away in the near future. 

“It’s a really unique year to be talking about safety, both online and offline. Between in-person school and the mental health challenges that everybody’s facing right now, it’s a challenging year. I hope if students don’t feel safe, whether it’s online or at school, that they’re reaching out to somebody to get some support,” Armstrong said.