Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say Something anonymous reporting system has generated more than 100,000 tips since its 2018-19 launch and local school district officials said each one is taken seriously, no matter the day or time.

By using the mobile phone app, submitting a tip online, or calling 1-844-SAF2SAY, anyone can report a potential issue, which most often fall in the categories of bullying/cyber bullying, smoking in school, and suicide ideation.

The tip line is operated and monitored 24/7 by the Office of the Attorney General where tips are reviewed, classified, and forwarded to the impacted school district. Each school district designates individuals who receive the tips.

“There are certain criteria a report needs to meet for them to call us right away,” Jaime Schuler, Palmerton Area School District assistant to the superintendent, said. “I’ve been on the phone at 1 a.m. and over Christmas break. There are some things that don’t meet the criteria and if it happens at night, it will come through at 6 a.m. That would be if it is not a heightened situation. When it does meet that urgent criteria, they will continue calling everyone on the district’s list until they speak to someone.”

While the state does not release data from individual districts, it does produce an annual report with overall statistics. The program led to 26,174 tips across Pennsylvania in the 2021-22 school year, up from 15,679 the year before.

Dr. Christina Fish, Lehighton Area School District superintendent, late last year began regularly updating the school board and community on the district’s Safe2Say numbers.

“We had 17 in November, followed by 19 in December,” Fish said. “That was primarily bullying and cyber bullying. That was followed by 9 reports in January and 21 in February.”

February, she said, brought an uptick in several categories including smoking, bullying, drug possession, and cutting and self-harm.

“February is normally a pretty challenging month when it comes to mental health so while those figures don’t necessarily surprise us, it is concerning and something we want to address as a district,” Fish said.

To date in March, Lehighton has had 23 Safe2Say tips submitted, with smoking, particularly vaping, being a major issue.

Fish said Lehighton is looking to buy vape detectors with Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant money. The district, she added, has also increased school police officer presence in areas where vaping is known to be frequent.

Data in the 2020-21 school year shows that 20.3% of all Safe2Say comments statewide were designated “life safety” matters, an increase from 15.7% in the 2019-20 school year.

Of comments related to mental health that were received by Safe2Say, the top categories in 2020-21 school year were:

• Bullying and cyber bullying (32%)

• Suicidal thoughts (30%)

• Cutting and self-harm (20%)

• Depression and anxiety (12%)

• Anger issues (2%)

Though life safety matters are increasing statewide, local districts aren’t necessarily seeing that trend.

“There was only one time I can recall that something came in that I knew it had to be handled right this minute and in that case, I called the police,” Paula Husar, Palmerton Area High School principal, said. “I don’t want to minimize anything, but you get everything with Safe2Say including boyfriend and girlfriend issues. You can’t take anything lightly. You have to look into everything.”

Safe2Say was recently a hot topic of conversation at Palmerton’s March school board meeting, when director Earl Paules questioned why more administrators were not getting tip notifications.

Palmerton has three people designated to receive tips.

“I think all administrators should be on that list,” Paules said. “Most districts we looked at had at least 5 people. If it goes out to everyone, the more eyes you can get on a situation like this, I think that would be beneficial.”

Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli said the decision on who gets Safe2Say tips within the district was made via a decision amongst the administrative team.

“We feel the system is currently set up the way it works best,” she said.

As well as the program is working, the attorney general’s office reports that a large number of false reports are also filed.

During the 2021-22 school year, the Safe2Say Something Program received a total of 1,053 tips that were designated as false reports or prank tips. Of those, 384 contained what seemed like credible information, yet were proven untrue upon investigation; or the information was provided with the intention to harm or disrupt.

“There have been some cases, right after the kids had the initial training, that we were getting a lot of tips,” Husar said. “Most of them ended up being, hey this is a new toy I have and I’m going to play with it. Whenever you do a new training, it just is in the kid’s head and they want to try it out.”

Though Safe2Say was originally established as a way to address threats of violence in school districts, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry said it has become much more than that.

Henry said many of the tips coming in are not about threats of violence, but instead mental health concerns.

Of Lehighton’s November tips, at least 6 were related to suicide ideation, something not uncommon around the holiday season.

“It’s a concern we really need to address because it goes to the mental health of the students in our classrooms and what teachers are faced with before they even get to instruction,” Fish said.

Henry is asking for around a 17% increase in the Safe2Say budget for 2023-24, which would include several additional staff members.

“We have asked for two additional investigators to handle incoming calls,” Henry said. “They were funded by a two-year grant that has not been renewed, but we’d like to keep those individuals. Especially when we are seeing a 250% increase in tips coming in.”