Schools
Every District 202 School to Get Bullying Hotline, E-mail Address
The school board approved the a special task force's recommendation, which also calls for each school to have an e-mail address to report bullies.
Parents can now report incidents of bullying to school authorities through individualized hotlines and e-mail addresses as part of a new initiative of ’s year-old .
Some district schools have had bullying hotlines in place for a few years. Now, each of the 30 schools will have its own system, available on the school’s home page and on the district’s Web site, school board President Roger Bonuchi announced at Monday’s board meeting.
The phone numbers and e-mail addresses offer parents, guardians and students a chance to share information in a non-threatening, anonymous and confidential way. The proper school authority – a principal, assistant principal or dean – will respond to each comment, district spokesman Tom Hernandez said.
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The district’s bullying task force was created last year to study the broad topic of bullying, learn new ways to help victims, teach proper behavior to aggressors and advise bystanders on ways to help a victim.
In the past year, the district collected data from about 13,100 students from third grade through high school to see how they feel in school, whether they believe bullying exists and in what ways students are bullied.
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While the concept of bullying isn’t new, technology and social networking Web sites have emerged as new ways that students can make fun of and attack others in front of a large group of people.
In the released in March, 96 percent of elementary students and 94 percent of middle school students reported feeling safe in school, and 80 percent of high school students said they had not experienced bullying in high school.
Expanding the hotline this fall to include all district schools is the next step of the task force, which will continue its research this school year, Hernandez said.
Mina Griffith, assistant superintendent for student services, and Ed Boswell, principal at , lead the task force.
“We hope that these confidential phone and e-mail connections will help parents, guardians and students feel comfortable enough to share their concerns about specific bullying issues,” Boswell said in a statement.
The district hopes that more parents and students will come forward with their bullying concerns through this new tool, Hernandez said. The district does not want parents or students to be afraid or embarrassed to report bullying, he said.
