California school district hires online monitoring firm to watch 13,000 students

The way Chris Frydrych tells it, monitoring schoolkids’ public social media posts and then reporting questionable activities about them daily to school officials is an unquestionable net positive.

So his new startup, Geo Listening, does just that. Geo Listening looks for social media posts that deal with depression, despair, online bullying, hate speech, or other words and phrases that may indicate a possible violation of school codes of conduct—whether it's by a student or someone in and around a school’s location.

Last month, Geo Listening even signed a deal with the Glendale Unified School District located north of downtown Los Angeles. Their agreement became the first publicly-confirmed partnership between the company and a school district. Glendale will pay $40,500 for Geo Listening to monitor posts by 13,000 students across its eight middle and high schools for an academic year.