Empowering Students to Report Bullying Threats

Located halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles, Temecula Valley Unified School District serves a diverse population across its 28 schools and nearly 28,000 students.

TVUSD partnered with K12 Insight to launch the Report Bullying initiative powered by Let’s Talk.

Let’s Talk provides students with a dedicated virtual space to anonymously report acts of bullying or other potential safety threats to school administrators — anytime, from any device.

Preventing crises by listening

The K-12 environment has drastically shifted — with more safety and mental health concerns than ever before.

School leaders are working around the clock to keep up with the ever-changing education environment as endless questions, concerns, and requests pour in from every direction. Amid the chaos is a significant risk: All it takes is one missed at-risk student to change everything.

“Our leadership has a real passion for wanting to hear from the community and find opportunities to engage with our parents in the 21st-century environment,” said Laura Boss, former TVUSD public information officer.

TVUSD launched Let’s Talk — the only customer service and intelligence platform purpose-built for education — in 2017 to support its Because Nice Matters bullying campaign.

Let’s Talk gives students, families, teachers, and staff a safe, reliable way to report incidents and safety concerns, and serves as an early warning system to help administrators prevent serious issues.

Students taking action

When a TVUSD student saw a social media post after school suggesting a classmate was contemplating suicide, they quickly submitted the concern using the Report Bullying interest area within Let’s Talk on the district’s website.

Boss received the critical alert within seconds. She immediately notified the district’s school resource team and the student’s parents. 

Days after, another tip was submitted — potentially saving another life.

“It was a sigh of relief we had something in place — an outlet somebody could use to report something like this,” Boss said. “I’m proud of the students who felt comfortable and safe in coming and reporting this.”

While anonymous reporting is an option within Let’s Talk, these students were comfortable sharing their contact information — which can be helpful when administrators need more details to take action. For students, using an online platform is less intimidating than talking to an adult.

Let’s Talk provides an avenue for two-way communication from a variety of channels, including text message, mobile-responsive web pages, mobile app, and more. 

Let’s Talk in Temecula Valley Unified School District

Since 2017, TVUSD has received more than 1,130 inquiries regarding bullying tips and concerns of threats from students in Let’s Talk — each of which is routed immediately to the right team member for investigation and follow up.

Using the Let’s Talk dashboard, administrators can understand how many reports are coming in, how quickly they are addressed, and who is handling each unique situation. The platform also allows teachers and staff to collaborate on responses. 

“District leadership cannot personally take on every piece or layer of the incident process that might occur, but this gives them an opportunity to always be in the loop,” Boss said. “They know exactly who is taking care of it, what the status is, and what the end result is.”

By bringing Let’s Talk into the community, stakeholders — especially students — know they can trust district administrators to listen and take action.