A school in California is using technology to combat bullying. No, it doesn’t involve security cameras or anything like that. The school placed a “Bully Button” on its already existing app. Students (and parents, and other adults) can use it to report bullying anonymously.
Nobody likes a bully. Despite this, there always seem to be some out there searching for someone to pick on. One of the problems with bullying in high school is that students become fearful of reporting it to school counselors or other staff.
The concern many students have is that there is potential that the bully could see them as they walk into the counselor’s office to report what happened. Once the bully is aware that he or she has been told on, it could lead to even more incidents of bullying. A student who was not a victim of a bully, but went to report about bullying he or she had witnessed, could become the bully’s next target (if the bully catches them coming out of the counselor’s office).
Righetti High School is located on the Central Coast of California. It is doing something really unique to combat bullying. The school had an app that could be used by students and their parents to keep aware of things that related to the school. Recently, a “Bully Button” was added to the app. The school counselor, Eric Blanco, had this to say about it:
This allows a student, a parent, even an adult witness to report a bullying incident.
High school students spend a lot of time looking at their smartphones. The “Bully Button” lets a student report an incident of bullying right away, without making it obvious what he or she is doing. The app asks for the name of the bully, and the name of the victim. It also asks for the genders of both. A student (or parent, or other adult), can choose to make an anonymous report if they do not feel comfortable giving their name.
Why point out this awesome piece of technology on the Special Needs Blog? According to AbilityPath, kids who have a special need are 2 to 3 times more likely to be bullied than are kids who have no special needs or disabilities. Often, the bullying is specifically because the child has a special need.
AbilityPath says that 85% of bystanders do nothing at all when they witness bullying. This includes the other students as well as the adult staff at a school. There is great potential that the “Bully Button” will encourage more people to report incidents of bullying. It is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, more schools will adopt this type of technology.
Image by artworksbytb on Flickr