The will to protect our students and end school violence is strong, but it will take a movement of courageous and proactive school leaders stepping up and leading the shift to create a more positive school culture. Bridg-it was created, designed and constantly being tweaked to support this movement.

This year alone, total spending on school safety nationwide is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and for good reason. In the first 21 weeks of 2018, we saw on average one school shooting per week where someone was hurt or killed. The safety climate in schools is worse when taking into consideration daily bullying and online bullying, identity threats, sexual misconduct, and other forms of violence.

A study analyzing the results of the California Healthy Kids Survey found that schools with unsafe learning environments face major financial losses. California school districts receive funding based on the average number of students in the classroom and absenteeism cuts into that funding. Approximately 10.4% of secondary school students in California reported missing school because they were bullied or felt unsafe, costing the state an estimated $276 million in one year.

School leaders and their teams need to be equipped to easily identify student emotional and social struggles quickly to prevent behavioral and safety issues from persisting and escalating. Not doing this will lead to loss of funding, and worse, increase the risk of a major student-school tragedy. Every year, school districts, municipalities, and their insurers drain millions of dollars and other resources on legal settlements.

School leaders — as the trusted protectors of our children — are committed to helping students grow and develop, yet, our evolving digital age creates increasing difficulty in meeting the constantly shifting physical and emotional needs of our students. Behavioral incidents take up a major portion of school leadership’s time and the lack of appropriate resources cause many of these issues to go unreported or unaddressed.

Every school is unique, and its culture is dynamic. Our students need the courageous leaders seeking the right strategies and effective tools eager to adapt to these unchartered times. The shift will arrive when our district leaders focus on creating cultures of authentic safety for their entire school communities.

Bridg-it is seeking California leaders who understand there’s no time to waste in shifting school safety from the inside out. Designed for our digital age, Bridg-it guides school leaders in creating a sustainable culture of safety and positivity, while identifying students in need of immediate social and emotional support.

*School Psychology Quarterly, June 2017, based on a 2011-2013 California Health Kids Survey

Bridg-it is proud to have recently partnered with the California School Boards Association to introduce data-driven school safety and restorative practices tools to more communities across California and the country. Bridg-it’s multi-lingual, private digital platform gives schools the ability to report and manage behavioral incidents and promote positive behavior. Bridg-it innovatively gathers usage data in real-time to help school leaders identify and assess behavioral trends and outliers — constant victims, aggressors, and disconnected students — and measure the efficacy of applied restorative solutions. Bridg-it empowers school leaders to intervene early, make better choices, reinforce positive behavior, and reduce risk.