Advanced Technology
Cutting-edge A.I. and machine-learning techniques
Keeps up with the evolution of teen slang
Admins can adjust sensitivity of detection algorithms to match school’s priorities
AI, Data and Technology
Trusted by more than 1,200 school districts
A Comprehensive Safety Solution at No Cost to Schools
Providing the Tools That Schools Need — For Free
Bark for Schools provides a world-class online safety solution for K-12 schools in the U.S. Our comprehensive solution comprises G Suite and Office 365 student account monitoring, Chrome/Chromebook monitoring, and a web content filter that categorizes and blocks harmful and inappropriate domains. Combined with the Family Alerts Dashboard, school communities now have all of the tools they need to help keep their students safe online.
Account Monitoring
Bark for Schools monitors G Suite and Office 365 accounts and alerts your administration to digital dangers. With world-class support available 7 days a week, you can combine account monitoring and web filtering for a robust safety solution that will remain free forever.
G Suite
- Gmail: Subject, Body, Attachments (Images and Videos)
- Gmail Chat: Text
- G Drive: Photos, Videos, PDFs, Office documents (.doc, .docx, etc.), Plain text files
- Google Docs: Content, Embedded Images, Comments, and Replies
Office 365 Monitoring Features
- Outlook: Subject, Body, Attachments (Images and Videos)
- OneDrive: Photos, Videos, PDFs, Office documents (.doc, .docx, etc.), Plain text files
- OneNote: Notes and Notebooks
Web Filtering
Web filtering with Bark for Schools helps keep your students on track. Free and available to all of our partners, these features block games, pornography, streaming services, and other content that may undermine a positive learning environment. Schools can manage their filtering in a way that works for them.
Features
- Broad Coverage: Bark for Schools uses DNS filtering as well as Google Chrome extensions to ensure filtering regardless of device.
- Insightful Reports: Generate reports for your school or district to identify problem areas within your specific network, and learn from student-level information as well.
- Customization: Adjust filtering to match your values by white- or black-listing websites in your classrooms on an as-needed basis. You can also filter content served to your IP address by category.
- User-Friendly: Your web filter interfaces seamlessly with the rest of your Bark for Schools service.
Benefits
- No Hardware Necessary: Instead of paying for unnecessary devices and maintenance, invest your savings back into your school.
- Robust Database: Our comprehensive database of risky content is constantly updated so your administration can focus on its mission.
- White-Glove Support: Our responsive support team is ready to help you through every step of the experience — also at no cost.
Partner with Parents
Schools can enlist the support of parents and guardians to monitor their children’s accounts after school hours, during weekends, and over holidays. These are times when students still use their school-issued accounts, but your administration may not be available to respond to urgent alerts. The Family Alerts Dashboard is also completely free.
Family Alerts Dashboard
- Peace of Mind: When parents and schools partner together to help keep their children safe, urgent issues are much less likely to fall through the cracks.
- Knowledge Is Power: A community that uncovers activities that might signify a broader problem is empowered to take meaningful action to improve the well-being of the entire student body.
- A Bridge to Bark: G Suite and Office 365 are just two of many platforms children can access. Schools that have parents monitoring personal accounts with Bark for Families report feeling better positioned to get ahead of issues before they escalate.
- Actionable Insights: Use data to uncover trends that may signify a broader problem among the student body and take meaningful steps to improve the well-being of every student.
A Tool for the Whole Community
- Digital Citizenship: Communities can promote positive interactions with digital technologies so that students can take advantage of the best of the online world.
- The Risks of Social Platforms: Schools tell us that cyberbullying and its associated effects are the primary reason for monitoring with Bark. Online interactions can quickly escalate, often ending with serious consequences.
- Prevention, Mitigation, Recovery
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- Bark for Schools helps parents and schools better understand their student body. This information is essential to preventing harmful situations, as a simple conversation is often enough to make an impact.
- During a potential crisis, rumors and misinformation can cause a “crisis contagion.” Monitoring with Bark can help communities set the record straight.
- Communities are better equipped to manage the lasting effects of trauma in the aftermath of a tragedy. Key signifiers to recovery can be found in the online interactions of students, informing the direction of support and care.
Keeping students safer the smart way
Bark for Schools Is a Tool for the Whole Community
Keeping up with student activities takes lots of time and energy. Bark for Schools will do the heavy lifting for busy administrations.
Connect my school now
Setup is easy with Clever and PowerSchool
Smart and Agile
What makes your company invaluable is that you continue to grow and adapt to the real world, especially in the K-12 space, to make sure that your product is on the leading edge ... It’s good to see a company that continues to care, and also grows the product to accommodate the students to keep them as safe as possible at all times.
Dan Lauletta
IT Director — Plum Borough School District
The Real Deal
Bark for Schools is the real deal. We didn’t have any sort of content scanning before getting Bark. Within a few days, Bark found multiple issues that would have gone unnoticed if we hadn’t been scanning Gmail and Hangouts. When an issue arose that could have been life-threatening for one of our students, a Bark team member called our school to help us take correct action.
Thad Schulz
Technology Coordinator — Sebeka Public School
Provides Free Insight
I’m a fan of anything that provides better insight into what’s going on with students, and the fact that Bark can do that for free is even better.
Aimee Bates
Technology Integration Specialist — Cullman City School District
Today’s students face greater dangers than those that came before them. External threats like cyberbullying and school shootings have them on edge, and threats like self-harm and suicidal ideation confront them from within. Bark and Safe and Sound Schools are teaming up to combat this problem, knowing we can make a huge impact.
Founded by Michele Gay and Alissa Parker after both of them lost a child in the devastating Sandy Hook shooting, Safe and Sound Schools provides research-based tools and resources for crisis prevention, response, and recovery to help protect every school and every student, every day.
Want to learn more about Bark for Schools?
Email help@bark.us or sign up for one of our webinars, which broadcast Every Thursday at 2 p.m. ET.
Smart and Secure School Safety
Bark for Schools is committed to ensuring data security and preserving the privacy of students and schools. In addition to the white papers below, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Human Review
Alerts reviewed by Data Annotation team around the clock
School and parents notified of urgent issues
Expert advice on how to handle the situation included
Administrator’s Guide
Legal Compliance
Schools own all data and control the level of monitoring
No data given to any third party without consent
Data purged within 30 days of analysis
State & Federal Compliance
Results from our Spring 2018 Case Study
SPRING SEMESTER 2018
1,762,740 STUDENTS
5 Bomb/Shooting Threats
1,494,438 Issues Discovered
(avg. 0.85 per student)
135,984 Students
involved in cyberbullying on school-issued Google accounts
309,299 Instances
of children using school accounts to buy, sell, or discuss taking illicit drugs
11,548 Children
expressed self-harm, cutting and/or suicidal thoughts
199,236 Instances
of nudity/explicit content
Findings after analyzing Google accounts provided by the school to the students.
As featured in
About Bark
Bark is an award-winning service that monitors text messages, emails, YouTube, and more than 24 different social platforms for potential safety concerns. Created in collaboration with child psychologists, youth advisors, digital media experts, and law enforcement professionals, Bark delivers a research-backed solution for safeguarding children as technology changes how and where we communicate.
Launched in 2015, Bark looks for potentially harmful activities that may indicate online predators, adult content, sexting, cyberbullying, drug use, depression, suicidal ideation, and more. We created Bark to serve as an essential tool for parents raising kids in the digital age.
Visit our homepage to learn more about our Bark for Families product.