Officials hope anonymous online reports will reduce bullying

By the beginning of school next fall, Hillsborough County students who are being bullied will be able to post their complaints anonymously on a school district Web site.

School officials already have procedures for reporting bullying, but they say that giving students anonymity will embolden them to reveal incidents they have seen or experienced and been afraid to talk about.

The site is in the planning stage, said Judith Rainone, the district's administration director. So far, the planners have decided they want each report to go directly to the school involved. The school will then investigate and report back to district officials.

Another goal is to make the site easy to navigate. "We want to make it easy to use and easy to find," Rainone said.

Students and parents with a complaint will also be able to make a report at the school site, using a new form the district has created especially for bullying cases.

The district is beefing up its anti-bullying policy following the case of a 13-year-old boy from Walker Middle School who was bullied for weeks by classmates who later attacked him in the school locker room, authorities say. According to reports, he was repeatedly raped with a broom handle and hockey stick.

Four Walker students have been charged as adults with four counts of sexual battery. They are Lee Louis Myers, Raymond A. Price-Murray and Randall John Moye, all 14, and Diemante Roberts, 15.

The district's goal is to chip away at the culture of secrecy that surrounds bullying, said board member Dorethea Edgecomb. "We have to give them anonymity."

The district's attorney had warned the board not to discuss the details of the Walker case, but it held a public discussion of its new anti-bullying measures on Tuesday because it wanted to get people's attention, said board member Candy Olson.

"The board wanted to talk about it to remind people this is an important thing to do," she said.

The problem goes beyond getting students to report bullying, said former student Jessica Hunt. School officials need to act on the reports.

Now 24, she was bullied as a student at Greco Middle School. She told her mother, who complained to the school.

"Nothing was done," Hunt said.

A guidance counselor talked to her about it, but never spoke to the students who were bullying her. The bullying continued until she left Greco for King High School.

The bullying was exclusively verbal, she said. "I was overweight. They teased me about that, and other things." But it was so relentless that she did think about suicide.

She has cousins in middle school now, and one of them, who recently moved to Florida from Pakistan, is being bullied by boys in his gym class. "They won't let him change clothes in the same room with them," she said.

"I think it's a lot worse now than when I was in school."

Edgecomb said that the new procedures, including the Web site, will ensure that bullying reports aren't ignored. The site "would be constantly monitored," she said. "There will be ongoing reporting back to the board."

The problem, Rainone said, is that people disagree about what qualifies as bullying. "Sometimes what parents see as bullying isn't bullying. Every case is different. But they will all be investigated."

Also, when a bullying case is confirmed, it will be noted on the record of the student. Until now, such actions were listed only as "inappropriate behavior," Rainone said.

Next week, school officials will be receiving training in the district's new bullying policies and the requirements of the state's anti-bullying law, she said. The state law requires school districts to train teachers and principals to spot signs of bullying and take action to stop it. The schools also must provide counseling to the victims and the bullies and follow up with their families.

Other districts have Web sites like the one Hillsborough is planning. In Pinellas County, all schools have posters that list the Web site address and encourage students to report bullying.

In Pasco County, students can report bullying through a school safety hotline. The calls are routed through the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, which then contacts the school resource officer so the complaint can be investigated, said Sherri Dunham, a supervisor in the school district's student services department.