Dive Brief:

• Maryland's Washington County Public Schools plans to begin monitoring its middle and high school students' on-campus social media messages for words such "bomb" and "kill." 
• The district is contracting Vermont-based company Social Sentinel Inc. for about $20,000 a year to do the monitoring.  
• A school principal or administrator will be alerted if the software discovers a suspicious word.  

Dive Insight:

Critics of the program are wary of the "Big Brother" mentality it surely perpetuates.  While the program also shows a lack of trust in students, it also appears to be fairly simple to game. If students know certain words are being monitored, they can easily swap them out. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the program is debatable.  Perhaps the $20,000 would be better spent on an anti-bullying or anger management program.