Funding, Grants & Awards | News

SchoolReach Offers $100,000 in Anti-Bullying Grants

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 07/18/12

SchoolReach has launched a $100,000 grant program to help schools implement its CyberBully Hotline, an anonymous bullying reporting tool.

Available to schools and districts with a free and reduced lunch rating of 31 percent or higher, the $2,500 grants will cover a 12 month service period for CyberBully Hotline.

The hotline is an anonymous two-way communication tool designed to prevent and reduce bullying. Students can call in or text when they see bullying taking place and school representatives can provide support and instruction for dealing with the situation. Both students and the school staff responding remain anonymous.

Features of CyberBully Hotline include:

A unique, dedicated number for each building;

Online access to the hotline;

Materials to promote the hotline, such as wallet cards with the school's number and posters with QR codes that allow students to put the number in their phone by scanning; and

Access to information about best practices and professional development materials through the CyberBully Hotline Resource Center.

"With child and teen bullying at all-time highs, schools are being required to implement protocols to curb bullying and online harassment of students to ensure that every child feels safe at school," said Paul Langhorst, chief marketing officer at SchoolReach. "Yet many schools lack the funding to offer effective anti-bullying programs to address this epidemic problem. Our hope is that these grant dollars will make it more cost-effective and easier to do just that."

Applications will be reviewed and grants awarded as they come in. The program will end October 31, 2012, or when the grant funds run out, whichever comes first.

Grant applications are available at cyberbullyhotline.com.