When administrators at the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) in California launched an online initiative to encourage students to report instances of bullying, they hoped the program would help make their schools safer. They had no idea it would end up saving lives. Then it happened—twice. In less than a month.

The Report Bullying initiative, powered by Let’s Talk! from K12 Insight, gives students a dedicated place on the TVUSD website to report acts of bullying or other potential threats to student safety.

C A S E S T U D Y

Empowering Students, Saving Lives

Temecula Valley Unified School District

www.K12insight.com @K12insight

27KNumber of students served

Source: Temecula Valley Unified School District

THE CHALLENGE

In 2012, the 27,000-student district established an anti-bullying program called Because Nice Matters, as well as protocols and processes to follow when problems arose. But the reporting platform was rarely used.

That’s when Public Information Officer Laura Boss engaged Superintendent Timothy Ritter and the school board about finding a new solution.

“Our leadership has a real passion for really wanting to hear from the community and find opportunities and ways that we can engage with our parents and our folks in a 21st-century environment,” she says.

K12 INSIGHT HELPS TVUSD LAUNCH REPORT BULLYING INITIATIVE

100+Number of bullying incidents or safety concernsReported through Let’s Talk!

2Number of potential student suicide attempts intervened

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It was a sigh of relief that we had something in place, that we had an outlet that somebody could report something like this.”

LAURA BOSS, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, TEMECULA VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

THE SOLUTIONThat passion for community engagement led the district to Let’s Talk!, a cloud-based communication solution that connects community members and school leaders 24/7 from a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The technology was designed to make it easy for parents, teachers, students and staff to engage with schools in a way that makes them feel both safe and comfortable.

When a fellow student saw a Facebook post suggesting that a classmate was contemplating suicide, the student used the Report Bullying feature on the website to securely share their concerns with administrators.

Within seconds, Boss received a Critical Alert to her smartphone. Even though the report came in after regular school hours, Boss was able to immediately contact the district’s school resource team. Within minutes, an existing protocol for notifying the student’s parents was put into action.

“It was a sigh of relief that we had something in place,” says Boss, “that we had an outlet that somebody could use to report something like this.” Days after the first suicide threat was reported, another concern was received. This time, a fellow student reported that one of their classmates had talked seriously about suicide. Again, the alert came in and protocols for urgent parental intervention were immediately followed.

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THE SOLUTION (cont’d)

The district had two targeted purposes for Let’s Talk! in the 2016-2017 school year: to power its new bullying reporting platform and to provide community feedback on the state-mandated Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP).

The highly targeted rollout included the creation of a custom Report Bullying button with a link on the district and school websites

as well as an awareness campaign with school leaders.

On the backend, Let’s Talk! gives administrators access to an interactive dashboard that

highlights trending issues, average staff response times, and overall community satisfaction, turning each interaction into an opportunity for improvement or intervention. “District leadership can’t personally take on every piece or layer of incident process that might occur, but this gives them an opportunity to always be in the loop,” Boss explains. “They know who exactly is taking care

of it, what the status is, and what the end result is.”

Dialogue Details

Received from

Done

This is a

Concern Compliment

Question Comment Suggestion

Received by

Letter Other

Observation Phone Call In-Person

Student Parent /Guardian

Employee CommunityMember

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STILL IMPROVINGThis school year, the district plans to expand the use of K12 Insight’s Let’s Talk!, coinciding with training for all administrators and site-level leaders. School leaders also plan to use the technology in other critical areas where community engagement can aid in district planning and decision-making.

For now, though, Boss says she’s happy to see fellow students displaying empathy and reaching out to help classmates in need—“that they had a way to do it, and that they felt compelled to do it, could well have saved two students’ lives,” she says. That’s the true power of student voice.

For more, visit www.K12insight.com/ school-safety-well-being

THE RESULTSSince rolling out the Report Bullying feature in early 2017, the district has received more than 100 comments and concerns from students and other community members, each of which is routed immediately to the right team member for investigation and follow up.

With the goal of starting small, Boss says, administrators did not actively advertise the Report Bullying campaign. Word spread largely through conversations between teachers, students and parents.

“They just sort of found this on the website,” she says, pointing out that students are very comfortable using technology in this way. Reporting safety and health concerns online is easier, can be done from anywhere, at any time, and is often less intimidating than talking to an adult.

It comes down to engaging students and parents in the right places. “The benefit of having this is huge,” says Boss. “We have generations of users and they all respond differently, so we’re not just making them talk to us through one channel.”

Perhaps the most impressive result is that Let’s Talk! has helped engender trust with students, who know that school leaders are standing by to help when they feel hurt or threatened.

“I’m so proud of the students who felt comfortable and safe in coming and reporting this,” Boss says. “They didn’t report it anonymously (though that is an option with Let’s Talk!); they reported it using their contact information and were comfortable sharing that because they felt that they had heard or seen a fellow student in need.”