October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

How to Report Bullying and Cyberbullying in Your Schools

How students, staff and the community report known or suspected cases of bullying is a critical part of any effort to address bullying.  School leaders should empower students and parents to report bullying.  Clear bullying reporting methods should be outlined in your school or school district policies.  Frequent social media campaigns and parent letters can also instruct the community on how to report bullying.  There are a variety of methods that schools can offer students and the community to report bullying.

In this article, we’ll cover the different bullying reporting methods available to schools.

Clear ways to report bullying makes a happier and safer schoolFor any method, it’s important that:

  • reporting be fast, simple and non-threatening,
  • reporting be encouraged for suspected bullying and not only bullying that has been directly witnessed and
  • students be able to report bullying without fear of being observed.

From New Jersey’s model bullying language:

“The goal of a reporting procedure is to encourage reports of alleged violations … by making the reporting process simple and non-threatening. The district should consider every mechanism available to facilitate reporting, including web-based reporting mechanisms and locked boxes located in areas of the school where reports can be submitted without fear of being observed.“ (State of New Jersey, Department of Education, 2007, p. 10)

Schools and School Districts Should Provide Systems for Both In-person Bullying Reporting and Anonymous Bullying Reporting

In fact, 11 states already have anti-bullying laws requiring school districts to allow students to report bullying anonymously. Those states are: Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wyoming.

Ways to Report Bullying at Schools – Pros and Cons

Online Incident Reporting (e.g., like BRIM Anti-Bullying Software)

Pros

  • Students can report 24/7.
  • Students can report safely from home or using their mobile device.
  • Students can report anonymously which can help remove concerns about the possibility of retaliation from bullies.
  • All incidents are automatically stored in a database saving time and ensuring all incidents are recorded (e.g., v.s. emails, text messages, in-person reports, etc that must be manually copied into your reports database or spreadsheet.)
  • Because all the reports are automatically stored in a database, it’s easy to find out hotspots for bullying around the school, create graphs, view long term bullying trends and more.
  • Related incidents between the same students can be grouped together and interventions tracked.
 Cons

  • While the rate varies, 0%-5% of reports received may be false reports.
  • May not suitable for urgent situations requiring immediate help.

Reporting Bullying via Text Messaging

Pros

  • Students can report 24/7.
  • Students can report safely from home or using their mobile device.
  • Related incidents between the same students can be grouped together and interventions tracked (depending on the database system your text messages are stored in.)
 Cons

  • While the rate varies, 0%-5% of reports received may be false reports.
  • There’s no option for students to report anonymously as text messages can be traced to individual mobile phones.
  • There’s no common form that all reported incidents follow – reported incidents may lack critical information like time, place, etc.
  • May not be suitable for urgent situations requiring immediate help.

Reporting Bullying via a Bullying Hotline Number

Pros

  • Students can report 24/7 (in some cases) or whenever the bullying helpline is open.
  • Students can report safely via the bullying hotline number from home or using their mobile device.
  • Questions can be asked of the person reporting to ensure incident records are complete.
 Cons

  • There’s no option for students to report anonymously.
  • Many victims of bullying don’t feel comfortable speaking about their situation to a live person and so may not feel comfortable using a hotline.
  • Can be expensive as it requires somebody be operating the anti-bullying hotline at all times (either that or restrict the hotline to a specific set of hours.)
  • In addition to setting up the bully hotline, this method still requires that a database be set up and that a person manually record the details of each call into the database.

Reporting Bullying via Email

Pros

  • Students can report 24/7 (in some cases) or whenever the hotline is open.
  • Students can report safely from home or using their mobile device.
  • Students can report anonymously which can help remove concerns about the possibility of retaliation from bullies.
 Cons

  • While the rate varies, 0%-5% of reports received may be false reports.
  • There’s no common form that all reported incidents follow – reported incidents make lack critical information like time, place, etc.
  • Requires that a separate database or spreadsheet be set up to store incident reports. Emails containing incident reports must be manually copied into your database which can take time and may prevent some incidents from not being recorded.
  • Not suitable for urgent situations requiring immediate help.

Reporting Bullying with Paper Reporting Forms and the Good Ole’ Drop Box in the Main Office

Pros

  • Students can report anonymously which can help remove concerns about the possibility of retaliation from bullies.
 Cons

  • Because these boxes are often located at the front office where others can see, students may be hesitant to report for risk of being labeled a snitch by their peers.
  • Students can’t report 24/7.
  • Students can’t report from home or from their mobile.
  • While the rate varies, 0%-5% of reports received may be false reports.
  • Requires that a separate database or spreadsheet be set up to store incident reports. Paper forms containing incident reports must be manually typed into your database which can take time.
  • Not suitable for urgent situations requiring immediate help.

In-Person Bullying Reporting

Pros

  • Staff can take immediate action.
  • Ideal for critical or urgent incidents that may come up and need to be handled quickly (e.g., there’s a fight about to happen outside.)
 Cons

  • Because this requires talking to staff in person, students may be hesitant to report in view of other students for risk of being labeled a snitch by their peers.
  • There’s no option for students to report anonymously.
  • Students can’t report 24/7.
  • Students can’t report from home or from their mobile.
  • Requires that a separate database or spreadsheet be set up to store incident reports. Conversations must be recorded and manually typed into your database which can take time and may prevent all incidents from being properly recorded.

Selecting a Bullying Incident Reporting Method(s) for Your School

As mentioned above, it’s recommended that schools provide both an in-person reporting method and an anonymous reporting method.

To see how Anonymous Online Bullying Reporting works, get your 14-day free trial of BRIM.

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