In August of 2024, schools across the Miami-Dade district began installing “Lightspeed” into their systems—a tool that would help detect bullying and violence in school. Last week, the system reached MLEC to prevent dangerous situations for its students.
Lightspeed offers several services, one of which is their alert system. The system is installed across school-issued laptops and utilizes AI to detect harmful phrases. The software program monitors for phrases that could indicate harm to oneself or to others.
“This approach is a good use of AI, but it can come with many issues as AI is still not fully developed. It’s a good starting point,” said freshman Bryan Suarez, a student in the IT academy.
Lightspeed systems only collect information when its detection systems are tripped and disregard any other information. Student names, school, grade level, e-mail, and flagged content are reported to the school for review. When the content is resolved, reports are sent to the district.
According to Lightspeed, its systems are currently installed in over 31 thousand schools across 42 countries. They protect around 23 million students worldwide through their alert, classroom monitoring, and filtering systems.
When the system was first implemented in MLEC, the school announced it through a series of assemblies. The gatherings did not center on the system but rather briefly mentioned it and warned against using violent language on school devices. Other Miami-Dade schools sent out letters that detailed further information.
At MLEC, Lightspeed is managed by MLEC’s Assistant Principal, Ms. Cimino, who follows up on suspicious activity with the aid of campus officials. Protocol requires her to file a 5-page report for each and every incident, sending it to the district for their records. Although many of the alerts at MLEC have been false, Ms. Cimino believes the system is important to keep her students safe.
Several of these incidents have occurred across grade levels. One student, sophomore Isabella Chavez, reports having utilized her friend’s computer to jokingly type a violent remark to them. To her surprise, she was called to the office only 15 minutes later.
“I was actually really scared. I’ve never been in trouble before. Still, I understand where the concern comes from. This is a serious matter that has been normalized among kids my age now, and it’s started to become part of the language that just gets thrown around without thought. It could definitely end up triggering someone,” said Isabella.
Following the incidents, students are called to visit Ms.DeArmas, the school TRUST counselor, as a precautionary measure. She ensures that the issue is fully resolved and offers a listening ear to affected students.
So far, no serious matters have been caught by the system at MLEC, but procedures are in place to ensure student safety should something happen in the future. For now, the Lightspeed system only raises questions about surveillance at MLEC. Will monitoring expand going forward? Only time will tell.
