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Anti-bullying efforts a success at Boody Jr. High thanks to new app

April 9, 2015 Anna Spivak
BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/File Photo
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Bullying has met its 21st century match.

Bensonhurst school, David Boody Jr. High (IS 228), is one of only two schools in New York to pilot a comprehensive anti-bullying app that helps students report an incident in less than one minute.

Bridg-it, the company behind the solution, launched Bridg-it School at Boody last year, and according to Principal Dominick D’Angelo, it’s been a “game changer.”

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“Our approach here is we want every student to feel very comfortable and safe at the school,” said D’Angelo. “There’s bullying everywhere at every school and the bottom line is, we’re willing to tackle it head on.”

The application, accessible via smartphone, tablet, and computer, follows an incident from “report through resolution,” according to Bridg-it. Students, teachers, or parents can file a confidential report through the app at any time and it will alert school administrators, as well as provide data about corresponding bullying trends at the school.

“It’s a tremendous, tremendous tool in the fight against bullying,” added D’Angelo “This is a game changer for us. We’re getting a full picture of what’s going on. We have bystanders who are reporting incidents and we want bystanders to become upstanders.”

CEO of Bridg-it, Jeffery Ervine, said he came up with the solution after a personal experience with cyber-bullying became “severe” and hit close to home.

“Bridg-it School was designed to serve as a catalyst for the social, emotional and cultural changes that today’s schools need to address new online communication modes,” said Ervine. “For the last year we’ve been piloting with David A. Boody students and our solution provided not only the identification, but processing and compliance. [It] also is a resource center which has a myriad of resources and techniques – everything they need to really address the problems.”

According to D’Angelo, enrollment at Boody has increased significantly and the number of bullying incidents has gone down.

“You can’t just have an assembly or a conversation once a month,” said D’Angelo, “you need to have it every day. We have students reporting on a daily basis and it makes them feel safe, it makes them feel comfortable. We know how to solve inappropriate behavior, the issue is finding out about it before it turns into violent behavior.”


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