This summer, San Francisco students had a cooling-off period, and not just because of the fog. A series of violent incidents involving youth rattled the city in the spring, including a fight and a gun found at a middle school, brawls at the Stonestown mall, and two stabbings.
In April, the superintendent of SF public schools, Matt Wayne, called it “one of the most difficult weeks I’ve had in my 25 years in education.”
The violence further frayed nerves in a school system facing declining enrollment, a teacher shortage, a faulty payroll system, and alarming gaps in student achievement along racial and ethnic lines.
This new school year, which started last week with the murder of a recent graduate at a Mission District recreation center, will see more tension over budgets, curriculum, and labor negotiations. Officials hope that the violence can be addressed with relatively new programs.
Wayne, Mayor London Breed, and others at City Hall pledged several things last spring. One was an increase in interruption programs, although they admitted that their impact is difficult to evaluate.
There’s an even newer program, which quietly began last year and will continue to roll out: a system through which anonymous tipsters can report disturbing or dangerous behavior.
The Say Something Anonymous System, for middle and high schools, was put in place at 23 SFUSD schools last year, and the district plans to roll it out in 19 more this fall.
In an April 27 hearing, Wayne reported that Say Something, developed and provided by nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise, was having an effect. “Just two weeks ago, two different students used this system to report something where we were able to intervene before it became a bigger issue,” he said.
The week of violence last spring was part of a troubling post-pandemic pattern. According to the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, from March 2022 to April 2023 there were at least 100 violent incidents at schools and off-campus involving youngsters. Last spring, DCYF executive director Maria Su said the incidents included 31 with guns. “These are alarming data,” Su added, “and these involve younger and younger people.”
Say Something tipsters can use a mobile app, website, or phone hotline. There’s no cost to the district; Sandy Hook Promise pays for implementation and training at each school and evaluates tips as they come in.
Ewan Barker Plummer, a recent high school graduate and an SF Youth Commissioner who has focused on school safety and violence prevention, called the system “effective.”
“It’s really important to have an anonymous reporting system,” Barker Plummer said. “Young people especially often don’t feel like they can speak up, especially because of peer pressure, or it can be scary to talk to adults about serious topics in school, especially if they’re worried that there’s going to be some sort of disciplinary action.”
The system creates “cultural shifts that are making schools safer: students looking out for one another, seeing warning signs, and taking action to get help for others who may be in crisis,” according to Aimee Thunberg, associate vice president of communications at Sandy Hook Promise. “This is how we bring an end to school shootings, youth suicide, and violence, creating upstanders in prevention rather than bystanders to violence,” she said.
A partial tip list
Through a public records request, The Frisc received a tip report for most of the 2022–23 school year. Through March 30, the district recorded 33 tips, nearly half of them from A.P. Giannini Middle School. Other schools on the list include Balboa High School, Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8, Abraham Lincoln High School, and Lawton Alternative K-8. (The Frisc also requested tip data for April and May, but records officials declined to fulfill the request.)
Most reported incidents are for depression or anxiety, bullying or cyberbullying, and planned school attacks. The Frisc could not determine how many of the reports were false alarms. When asked about the typical ratio, Sandy Hook’s Thunberg said nationwide, fewer than 2 percent of tips are deemed to be false. However, Thunberg referred questions about SF false alarm rates to the school district. SFUSD spokesperson Laura Dudnick declined to answer.
Abraham Lincoln High was trained on the Say Something system last year and produced two tips in the first seven months, according to SFUSD records.
Of the 33 submitted tips on the report, six listed the involvement of the 911 system and the SFPD. If a tip involves an immediate threat such as an assault, the crisis center contacts law enforcement.
Sebastién Beaudet is coordinator of the Say Something program and the 5th and 6th grade counselor at Buena Vista Horace Mann, a K-8 school in the Mission, where most of the tips were related to bullying. “[Students] are worried that they’re going to get in trouble, and it’s also a place where social relationships matter more, so we start to see an increase in bullying from other students,” Beaudet explained.
Beaudet described how school staff dealt with one bullying incident that came through the system. Sometimes staff work together to find out who’s involved by talking to classmates, teachers, and parents. In this specific case, Beaudet already knew the bullied student, so he approached and asked: “You mentioned an anonymous tip. Can we discuss it openly?”
The student agreed, allowing Beaudet to identify the group involved. Staff informed parents, and a plan was made to address the situation and ensure appropriate consequences.
Both the Say Something app and website let students input the school name, individuals involved, and other details to describe the incident. On the hotline, counselors are accessible around the clock to provide assistance and guidance over the phone.
The Say Something system is simple and convenient, which means it can ‘meet students where they are.’
Sebastién Beaudet, Buena Vista Horace Mann counselor
When asked how the data can lead to insights and improvements in the system, Sandy Hook’s Thunberg says school districts own their own data and do their own analysis. The Frisc asked SFUSD about adjustments to make as it rolls out Say Something to nearly two dozen more schools this year. Dudnick, the district spokesperson, didn’t have an answer. She also declined to comment on the criteria used to select schools for the initial rollout. (The district’s director of planning, preparedness, and prevention Greg Markwith, also declined to comment and referred questions to Dudnick.)
In SFUSD, the responsibility of handling tips typically falls on the wellness team, composed of social workers, a nurse, counselors, and administrators. 19 high schools, four middle schools, and three K-8 campuses have a wellness center.
To promote the system, Sandy Hook recommends activities during the system’s rollout such as, “Draw a new emoji that represents the term upstander” and “Write a brief letter or postcard to a trusted adult in your life.” Schools also put up posters with a QR code for students to download the app.
Beaudet said he liked the system’s simplicity and convenience, which can “meet students where they are.” The school superintendent agrees: “Our students can be our biggest allies on being preventive,” he said in April, “because they know more than we do about what is happening among their classmates.”
