More than 8,200 actionable student safety incidents were flagged on Austin school district-issued devices in the 2025-26 school year, the highest total since the district began releasing the data with a third-party partner.

The sharp increase sounds like a warning sign. Instead, district leaders and researchers say it could be evidence that schools are seeing more of the struggles students already were experiencing, particularly after Texas banned cell phones in classrooms.

The increase included more than 1,000 additional incidents involving violence toward others and about 700 more involving talks of suicide compared with the previous school year. It was the largest year-over-year jump in publicly available data dating back to 2021.

But the numbers do not necessarily mean students became less safe. For years, much of the concerning behavior between students unfolded on personal phones that schools could not monitor. Austin ISD leaders and researchers say Texas’ classroom cell phone ban, along with expanded monitoring tools, may have pushed those conversations onto school-issued devices, giving educators a clearer window into student wellbeing. Whether that shift actually reduced harmful behavior or simply made it more visible remains an open question.

Gaggle, Austin ISD’s third-party virtual monitoring provider, uses artificial intelligence and human reviewers to screen district-issued accounts and devices for signs of suicidal ideation, substance abuse, cyberbullying and threats of violence. Content becomes an actionable incident only after two levels of review determine that district employees or law enforcement should be notified.

How the monitoring works

Gaggle Founder and CEO Jeff Patterson said machine learning identifies potentially-concerning language in district-issued student accounts before human reviewers evaluate the content. Situations that appear to pose an immediate threat prompt an emergency call to the school district. Less urgent cases, such as discussions of previous suicidal ideation or self-harm, are classified as ”questionable content.”

Patterson said he believes the increase in incidents likely stems from three factors: the district’s implementation of Gaggle’s web activity monitoring program, which monitors what students type on school-issued devices, including Google searches and AI chatbots; Gaggle’s new “deep threat detection” model, which identifies concerning language without relying solely on keywords; and the possibility that Texas’ cell phone ban pushed more student communication onto school-issued devices.

“Kids are always going to find a way, and so if they are on their device communicating with each other more they may be communicating these concerning issues,” Patterson said.

Patterson said it remains too early to determine which factor is driving the increase. Students may simply be using school-issued devices more during the school day, or they may be using personal phones and devices while remaining logged into their school Google accounts, shifting when the activity occurs rather than where.

How Austin ISD explains the increase

Austin ISD said in a statement the numbers reflect greater visibility into student wellbeing, not necessarily an increase in student crises.

“Our priority is ensuring every potential student safety concern receives an appropriate and timely review,” the district’s statement said.

District leaders cited greater use of district-issued devices, expanded web activity monitoring and the launch of the district’s Safe Space Anonymous Reporting program as potential reasons for the increase. The district said those tools allow staff to identify concerns hours, and sometimes days, sooner, giving employees an opportunity to intervene before a student is harmed.

According to the district, Austin ISD uses licensed mental health professionals, counselors, behavioral threat assessment teams and other supports to respond to student mental health and safety concerns.

“With the banning of cell phone use, students are more likely to use school-provided devices

which increases the amount of concerning content the district is notified about,” the district said. “The number of concerning content incidents has increased with students now chatting with AI bots.”

What researchers still don’t know

Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and co-author of a recent national study on school cell phone bans, said the study examined schools that enforced the ban using magnetically-sealed pouches, allowing them to compare outcomes.

Dee said the study found disciplinary incidents increased during the first year schools enforced cell phone bans. He said there are two possible explanations. Teachers enforcing the new law may have experienced more conflict with students, or students without phones may have had more opportunity to interact with classmates and act out.

“Some of the more optimistic discussion about phone bans is ‘teens and students are rediscovering personal interactions, social engagement’,” Dee said. “But of course, that could have a negative cost too.”

Dee said those findings could help explain part of Austin ISD’s increase, though there is not yet enough evidence to determine whether the rise reflects more concerning behavior or simply greater visibility into behavior that previously occurred on students’ personal phones or computers.

“A lot of this behavior was likely happening before and it simply wasn’t observable to us because it was on students’ private devices,” Dee said. “Phone bans may drive it on to the school platform and potentially reduce the overall level, but because it is on a school platform, that gives educators and parents information and frankly the responsibility to address this behavior.”

Dee said researchers now need to determine whether Austin ISD’s data reflect short-term disruption caused by the cell phone ban or an illustration that negative interactions between students are becoming more visible because they are occurring on monitored school devices.

“This is a space where we need to stay engaged, study data and try to understand what is happening and how best we can identify best practices,” Dee said.