SC Midlands school district rolls out app to let students anonymously report bullying

A Midlands school district is introducing a new app that will allow students to anonymously report bullying and threats, officials said Thursday.

Lexington-Richland 5 is introducing the STOPit app — made by New Jersey-based company STOPit solutions — to all high, middle and intermediary school students, which will allow them to send texts, pictures and video from their smartphones to school administrators, the district said in a press release.

Once an administrator sees the report, he or she can continue to talk back and forth with the student without the student having to share his or her name, the press release said.

“With STOPit, we are doing more than just helping schools address incidents and mitigating risk,” Kelly Brown, the district’s student services officer, said in the press release. “It is allowing us to go beyond reacting, and instead deter incidents in some cases.”

Some schools in Lexington-Richland 5 have a system to report anonymous complaints, but this would be the first time the service is available to all schools, the press release said.

The press release said the service adds “no additional cost” to the district.

It’s becoming more common for school districts to offer apps with anonymous reporting. Both Richland 1 and Richland 2 offer anonymous reporting through their apps, spokeswomen from the districts told The State.

This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 11:42 AM.