Is your school prepared to demonstrate all actions taken to respond accordingly to reports of bullying and harassment? Are your school leaders even aware of bullying that may be creating a hostile learning environment?

According to recent studies, 33% of students are being bullied each year and 60% of teachers/staff are witnessing bullying two or more times in a month. Based on your student numbers, how many incidents should you be investigating, preventing and documenting in your school?

On October 6, 2010, the OCR “Dear Colleague” letter sent to all schools clearly defined all schools who know or reasonably should know about student bullying/harassment must:

▪ Investigate the incident
▪ Take immediate action to stop the harassment
▪ Take action to prevent the recurrence of harassment
▪ Eliminate the hostile environment
▪ Address its effects
▪ Take appropriate actions to revise policies and re-train students, faculty, staff and parents

Now, as the new school year begins, the Department of Justice and Department of Education are making it clear OCR requirements will be enforced. A seven month investigation at Tehachapi Unified School District is being called a landmark case with serious and expensive consequences for school boards and administrators. On July 1, 2011, a “resolution agreement” concluded that TUSD “did not adequately investigate or otherwise respond” to claims of bullying/harassment which led to the suicide of a 13-year old student.

Schools across the nation have been put on notice. As most schools are already dealing with fiscal challenges, schools cannot afford suicides, undocumented incidents, federal investigations and lawsuits. Prevention is a top priority and more critical now than ever before. How is your school encouraging students and parents to proactively report bullying/harassment and ensuring that all actions taken are documented with legal due diligence to meet ongoing OCR requirements?

Awareity, Inc. has created an innovative software platform that can help school leaders receive reports ongoing and document all actions taken with the necessary legal due diligence. TIPS (Threat Assessment, Incident Management and Prevention Services) provides schools with the tools to empower students, parents, staff, faculty, community members, etc. to report suspicious incidents, warning signs, red flags, etc. Then, because this makes the school aware of incidents, the team members can easily and quickly record their actions, follow-up requirements, etc. in the secure web-based system and document they have taken the required actions and response to meet OCR guidelines.

According to bullying prevention expert, Dr. Scott Poland, “TIPS is truly the most comprehensive incident management system available for K12 schools to not only receive anonymous reports from their students and parents, but ensure all appropriate personnel are notified to connect the dots and determine the most effective response. TIPS is helping school districts proactively prevent the preventable – suicides, bullying, violence, truancy, depression and more.”

About Awareity:
Awareity helps leading organizations prevent the preventable and transform the status quo. Awareity is reinventing the way organizations prevent regulatory failures, compliance fines, lawsuits, privacy breaches, safety disconnects, operational challenges, ethical lapses, incident reporting failures, workplace violence and more. Awareity offers an innovative and cost-effective platform to connect the dots, eliminate embarrassing gaps and realize a better bottom line. For more information visit www.awareity.com, www.tipsprevent.com or contact Awareity at info@awareity.com.

Contact:
Katie Weaver
402.730.0077
info@awareity.com
www.awareity.com
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