Tulsa Public Schools Use High Tech Tools To Combat Bullying

Tulsa Public Schools is using technology to combat bullying. The district will launch a new online tool in January that will make it easier to confidentially report bullying or other potentially harmful incidents.

When parents and students log on to the TPS website next month, they'll see a tab called TIPS. There they can type out the threatening situation.

TPS says it hopes the option to remain totally anonymous will encourage people to step forward.

In the age of technology, the age old problem of bullying is being tackled head-on.

"The new social media is a monster out there. Things start to happen between students. The most innocent little thing can be blown out of proportion because Facebook publishes it to the whole world," said Carol Chapman, Booker T Dean of Students

Statistically 160,000 kids across America skip school each week because they are afraid.

"Kids want it to stop. They just want it to stop whatever it is. Bullying, cyber bullying, but they don't feel like they have a good way of reporting it now," said Rick Shaw, CEO of Awareity.

Shaw says he noticed the often brutal environment kids are exposed to everyday when he would go with his daughter to school for lunch.

"Just watching kids in the lunch room was amazing. The cliques. All the groups. All the kids that get disconnected and isolated. It's just who do these kids turn to?" He said.

This is one of the reasons Shaw created the online tool "TIPS."

He says anonymous reporting is easy. Users select from a drop down menu that will let them choose the school, the date and time, the name of the people involved and a description.

The reports are instant. The district will be notified and appropriate action can be taken by school counselors or other administrators, or even the police.

TPS will have a policy against false reporting. They say each report will be taken seriously.