In these days on online everything, if you want students to report incidents of bullying, why not give them a website that will enable them to blow the whistle on the bullies?
Nanaimo has it, and the chair of the School District 57 District Parent Advisory Council says it could work for Prince George.
Don Sabo says its time the school board started thinking outside of the box and develop innovative methods to tackle the bullying problem, which would involve students, parents, teachers, school administrators, support staff, police and social agencies.
School District 63 in Nanaimo-Ladysmith has done exactly that in creating its Teens Networking Together website www.tntnanimo.com, which provides students the tools to report bullying incidents.
"So many kids these are wired to the Internet and we brought forth the best possible approach we feel would work," said Sabo.
"We want something that is action-oriented, rather than something that was done 10 years ago and you just kind of tweak it and revisit it. That's been tried before. I think parents realize that's not going to work. It's a shared problem and we want to work with the school district and help with a collaborative approach."
The Nanaimo website is a collaborative effort between the School District 63, the RCMP and the Vancouver Island Crisis Line. Students who use it to report bullying can choose to remain anonymous, but the site warns that would limit the ability of school officials or the RCMP to act on the information.
Sabo sent a letter on Tuesday to School District 57 trustees to express his concerns the bullying issue is not being dealt with effectively, citing examples of a fragrant-sensitive student being harassed, Twitter threats to students, and bullying at unsupervised playgrounds.
"DPAC appreciates and supports the school district's zero tolerance policy on bullying in schools, however, there seems to be a multiple examples of a disconnect between the purpose of that policy and its actual application in schools within this district," Sabo said.
