City Schools uses GoGuardian, an application that supports online safety by monitoring and managing our students’ interaction with technology during the school day. This helps ensure that students are positively engaging with technology and assists in protecting students from exposure to inappropriate content.
GoGuardian includes Beacon, a tool that provides alerts when a student uses their City Schools laptop to search for content related to suicide or self-harm. As part of an update for School Year 2024-25, Beacon alerts will be sent to schools Monday through Friday between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. School staff receive Beacon alerts throughout the school day and will address any alerts as appropriate to ensure the safe use of technology and student wellness. Staff will address alerts received after hours with students on the next school day.
If you have concerns about your child’s mental health, there is always help and support available:
Talk with a trusted adult at your school; we are here to help.
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call, text or chat 988
Behavioral Health System - Baltimore: 410-433-5175
211 Maryland - Health & Human Services: 211
Hazel Health - Baltimore City Public Schools partners with Hazel Health to provide virtual mental health support to students free of cost. Learn more about this and other health services here: www.baltimorecityschools.org/page/health-services
ParentGuidance.org – In partnership with the Cook Center, families and staff have access to parentguidance.org, an online service that provides parent coaching, trusted and specialized courses, and a safe community for parents to learn how to support their children and get answers to mental health questions.
GoGuardian Beacon Summer Change
During the summer months, City Schools disables GoGuardian Beacon, the automated tool that monitors student self-harm searches on Chromebooks. Beginning June 26, 2024, GoGuardian Beacon will be disabled. It will be reenabled on Friday, August 25, 2024.
GoGuardian Filtering will continue, filtering web content on student Chromebooks that are not joined to the City Schools network.
GoGuardian Teacher, the tool that allows teachers to connect with students to manage and support learning on Chromebooks, will still be available for summer learning.