Anonymous tip line set up for victims of bullying

SACKETS HARBOR — Although school districts throughout the country have been on a crusade against bullying, some students are still afraid to speak up to administrators about problems they may be facing.

In an effort to have more students notify administrators about bullying, Jennifer L. Gaffney-Goodnough, Sackets Harbor Central School District principal, signed the school up on www.anonymoustips.com.

This website is free to any school.

“As a community service, anonymoustips.com is providing a completely anonymous email capability for people to send leads and tips to schools, local police departments and/or government agencies,” according to the mission statement on the website.

The website also encourages tips on stalking, Internet harassment, domestic abuse and other harmful activities.

Sackets Harbor is not the only school district in the area that takes advantage of the website. Watertown City School District’s Case Middle School also is registered.

The Sackets Harbor district signed up to allow students to send tips via the website last year, but Ms. Gaffney-Goodnough said it really took off with the students this year.

In October, the school’s “virtue of the month” was observance of laws and order. The high school science department created a presentation about anonymoustips.com for grades six through 12 to make sure students were aware of the site and how to use it.

Ms. Gaffney-Goodnough has received about 20 tips since the beginning of the 2011-12 school year, including some about peer drug use. She receives the tips in her email inbox as soon as a student hits send on his or her computer.

When Ms. Gaffney-Goodnough receives a tip, she calls the student who has been accused of bullying to her office to discuss potential consequences. Depending on the detail of the tip, the student’s parents might be called to let them know what their child has been accused of.

“Because these tips are anonymous, we can’t handle them in disciplinary ways,” she said. “We have to use these moments as teachable moments.”

When they first signed up to use the website, there were some concerns that students would send false tips to get classmates in trouble.

“It’s hard to tell which ones are true,” Ms. Gaffney-Goodnough said. “If they’re writing a paragraph, it’s unlikely they’re being dishonest.”

She said she cannot recall whether she’s received any anonymous tips related to cyberbullying. However, in the past, she has been told about these incidents in person.

“I’ve had kids coming to me often telling me that ‘somebody’s bullying me on Facebook,’” she said. “At times, we’ve gotten law enforcement involved. Thankfully, we’ve only had a couple of cases like that in the past few years.”