Photo by Erin Nelson.
Trussville City Schools recently adopted the use of the Anonymous Alerts app for students to report bullying and safety concerns at the Aug. 21 Board of Education meeting.
Trussville City Schools recently approved the adoption of two new pieces of technology aimed at improving student safety and transparency at Hewitt-Trussville High School.
Anonymous Alerts — an app allowing students to report issues in the school to administrators — and K12 Bloom — a software platform that enables school staff to track and analyze student behavior — were recommended to the Trussville Board of Education by Aaron King, the new principal at Hewitt-Trussville High School.
King used the two platforms during his time as principal of Huntsville High School and said he believes they can help improve the high school’s culture of safety and student discipline.
“Both of them have the ability to help with the school culture,” King said. “We have a great school culture here, but we can always improve.”
King brought Anonymous Alerts and K12 Bloom to the attention of Trussville officials during his interview process and believes they can help rebuild trust between school administrators with students and parents after the high school’s mishandling of threats made by a student last fall.
With Anonymous Alerts, students can report bullying, behavioral and other safety concerns at any time, without identifying themselves. The platform also enables school administrators to investigate and manage reports efficiently.
King said he believes the platform will also help school administrators identify other issues, such as students dealing with depression or potential emotional issues, as well as give them an inside view of what’s happening throughout the school.
“There is always kind of a layer beneath that you don't have visibility on,” King said. “Even as educators, we see the school at surface level, but as a student, they see another level that we don't get to see, through the lens of social media, their personal interactions and what that looks like on a day-
to-day basis in class, the lunchroom, the library, etc.”
King said most kids want a safe and welcoming environment to pursue their academics and extracurricular activities and are eager to see disruptive behavior stopped. However, fear of retaliation
or being ostracized often keeps them from feeling comfortable reporting problems to school administrators.
“They’re going to see things and hear things, but they don’t want to be that kid in the hallway telling you about something that they don’t want everyone else to know about,” King said. “This is a tool that gives kids a voice, especially the kids that maybe don't feel like they have one.”
“They can be on their Chromebook in class working on their classwork, but they can go into Anonymous Alerts and send us a little note that says, ‘I’ve got a friend that you need to go talk with, they’re having a difficult day,’” King said. “We might find out they need to speak with a guidance counselor because maybe they’re thinking about self-harm.”
King said he is aware that some kids will send some frivolous alerts early on as the app is rolled out. Additionally, he explained that if a student sends a threat through the app, there are mechanisms that allow administrators to trace the device and the student making the threat.
K12 Bloom’s system for tracking positive and negative behaviors, addressing potential threats and managing interventions will be able to replace an outdated system of triplicate paper forms that, King said, have many points of failure.
“A lot of things can happen to that piece of paper and, maybe, not make its way to an administrator,” he said. “We want to make sure we can handle it timely and in a way that is commensurate with the infraction.”
With K12 Bloom, a teacher can write up a student and describe the incident in the platform, and as soon as the teacher hits “send,” a message is immediately sent to an administrative team that can respond within minutes rather than hours or, in some cases, days.
“If a student has some sort of event that they need to speak with an administrator over and that write-up comes in during the second period, we might be able to get him before they leave the class or even the next period if need be,” King said. “We are then calling home to let Mom and Dad know what happened in class today and this is how we're going to resolve it.”
The system also provides reports with statistical analyses of events and other data, allowing school administrators better oversight of the school.
“I can pull statistical information to determine what locations are the hotspots in our building or if there is any type of data that shows me a particular class or students who have the most write-ups at a fingertip's touch," King said.
The Trussville Board of Education approved the adoption of K12 Bloom and Anonymous Alerts during its Aug. 21 board meeting.
