Safe2Tell, a violence intervention and prevention program, recorded its second highest reporting month in April 2024 with 3,188 reports. According to the report released today, school complaints continued to top the category of reports for the fourth consecutive month.
Attorney General Phil Weiser stated, “While our data is consistent with a national trend of rising reports of school complaints, the number of suicide reports in April has remained the same to what it was a year ago. There’s still work to do to help our kids that are struggling today, and we are committed to addressing that challenge.”
The volume of reports for the 2023-2024 school year increased last month to 23,799. This marks an increase from the 18,783 reports at the same point in the 2022-2023 school year. Following school complaints (378), bullying (354) and suicide (287) were identified as top categories of reports.
Stacey Jenkins, Safe2Tell Director, explained: “April is one of the heaviest reporting months every year, and school complaints is a complex category about issues within the school itself. Sometimes it’s about school security or staff, and other times its dissatisfaction with how the school dealt with issues like bullying or student conflict. We are analyzing data now to see if we need to make any updates to reporting categories for the next school year.”
False reports accounted for 3.7% of all submissions this year. These are defined as those containing untrue information submitted with intent to harm or bully another person.
Safe2Tell's anonymous reporting system has successfully protected students' safety over the past month:
A person reported that a peer regularly brings their knife to school which made them uncomfortable. The student's knife was confiscated following an investigation by school teams who also contacted parents and took disciplinary action.
Another person reported a student blackmailing a classmate by sending inappropriate photos of them to their peers. The school teams intervened, spoke with the student and their parent, took disciplinary action, facilitated a restorative conversation with the student, and arranged counseling for them.
Safe2Tell is not an emergency response unit or mental health counseling service provider; it is an information pathway for distributing anonymous reports to local law enforcement and school officials as required by state law.
To make a report, individuals can call 1-877-542-7233 from anywhere, at any time. Reports can also be made at Safe2Tell.org, by texting S2TCO to 738477, or through the Safe2Tell mobile app available on the Apple App Store or Google Play.