BULLYING: A texting service connecting students and their school has the potential to stop bullying.
By Amy Wang, Staff Writer
A new texting service will allow students from grades K-12 to report bullying incidents via text message. The service, called TipTxt, was created by the education technology company Blackboard, and will be offered to schools everywhere at no charge. The only cost schools have to pay is for a dedicated phone line to support the system, which can be bought at district level for around $125 per year. At such a low cost, it’s worth a shot for schools to try and crack down on bullying.
The service is simple for students to navigate. With just one text message to the service, keyword-based filters trigger an automatic response replying that the school will investigate the bullying incident.
Often, in bullying cases, students are too afraid to report a bully. Even a trip to the office to fill out an anonymous slip may be viewed as too risky or too much work for a student. A quick text message could easily solve this problem.
“Some students tend to not be as comfortable with face-to-face and [texting] is how they communicate,” Dr. Lisa Andrejko, Superintendent of Schools for Quakertown Community School District, one of the first districts to test the system, said. “Using technology to report situations and alert school officials without having to be in their presence or be seen is a very effective means of communication and helpful in anti-bullying efforts. With TipTxt, we can help students report bullying without fear of retaliation.”
While he service is not anonymous, it is confidential, meaning that the system can track the number the message originated from. This allows the school to follow up for more details, as well as check for any false reports or abuse of the system. However, the data will not be attached to the student’s record and is only to be seen by those in charge of enforcing the anti-bullying policy.
The system is still new and has yet to be implemented on a larger scale, so there’s no way to know for sure whether or not this service will work effectively to stop bullying. Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Instead of just advertising, “Let’s stop bullying,” Blackboard has created a way to
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actually crack down on bullying.
For the system to work to its full potential, it is important that schools using the service advertise it as often as possible. Now, it’s up to the schools and students to step up and stop bullying.