As Lehighton Area School District embarks on a new school year, a statewide initiative designed to empower students and community members to report concerns anonymously is already showing signs of effectiveness.

Superintendent Dr. Christina Fish said Monday night that, since the school year began earlier this month, the district has received a significant number of Safe2Say Something tips.

“We have had 20 Safe2Say tips come in since the start of the school year,” Fish said. “The numbers are pretty high considering we are only 2.5 weeks into school.”

The reports include four categorized as bullying/cyberbullying and three related to suicide/suicide ideation.

The Safe2Say program allows students and community members to report concerns anonymously, which, in many cases, has led to multiple reports about one student, as friends express their concerns for their peers, Fish said.

Lehighton board member Jeremy Glaush inquired about how the district measures the success of the Safe2Say program.

“We don’t always have the outcomes because some of that involves private information,” Fish said. “I think you can measure the success when you see how many of our students are receiving services in our buildings. I don’t want to sound morbid, but when we don’t have outcomes from especially our suicide ideation numbers, that is a measure of success that we intervened in time. That is the purpose of the anonymous reporting so we can intervene before things happen.”

Glaush emphasized the importance of community awareness about the program’s impact, saying, “To the public it seems like, oh, the numbers are going up, things are really bad. But it’s more than just a statistic. It means friends are letting people know that other friends are in a potentially dangerous situation, and the school, which sees our kids more than we do during the day, is doing something about it.”

Fish explained the Safe2Say program is not without its challenges.

“It is a two-edged sword,” she said. “Sometimes we get reports that are not as accurate as they should be, but we quickly find that out and address that.”

The state monitors Lehighton’s responses to each report to help ensure the district is taking the necessary steps to address reported concerns promptly and effectively.

State Sen. Scott Martin of Berks and Lancaster counties recently spoke on the Senate floor about his resolution establishing Sept. 25-29 as Safe2Say Week in Pennsylvania.

“The safety of students must continue to be one of our highest priorities,” Martin said. “The creation of this strong reporting system has played a key role in bringing issues to the attention of authorities so they can take the proper steps to safeguard our kids in schools and build a safer and healthier community.”

Martin has further called for the nonpartisan Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a survey that will assess what has gone well for the Safe2Say program and identify areas that need improvement.

“I’ve said it before,” Fish said, “but in my previous setting, Safe2Say was not used as effectively as it is here in Lehighton.”