This past week, Superintendent Malcolm Thomas made a presentation to the Escambia Co. School board on the new online system that the district will launch in August:
It will allow anyone to anonymously report incidents of school bullying, teen dating violence, harassment and other incidents. Principals will be trained on how to deal with reports. All reports will be investigated to some extent.
With nonviolent situations, the principal will determine the appropriate actions. With violent reports, the sheriff’s office will be notified. With violent incidents, the victim’s parents will be notified. Victims will be given six follow-up sessions
School board expressed concern that principals are not criminal investigators, and that even with training they will be already stretched too thinly to properly investigate cases.
There seemed to be some confusion over where the job of the principal ends and the sheriff’s office begins.
The website will offer different categories of abuse, so that a principal can distinguish the urgency of different allegations. The principal will be notified electronically. The School Board discussed whether or not abuse complaints should be forwarded from the principal to the school resource officer, or automatically to the school resource officer. No final decision was made on that point.
With issue to repeat false reports, the IT department will be able to check IP addresses, thus making anonymous not anonymous. Those who make false reports in good faith will be not be penalized.