Is ignorance really bliss?  Do I really want to know what is going on in my school?
The notion that not knowing what is occurring in your school releases the responsibility and liability of the administration and its faculty proves disastrously wrong in the face of a tragedy. The cost of dealing with a suicide or shooting is measured not only in dollars for lawyers and lawsuits, mental health officials, insurance companies, public relations specialists, but what reputation has been newly constructed as a result of the school sticking its head in the sand?

“The findings of the Safe School Initiative suggest that silence is far from golden. In fact, study findings indicate that silence may be downright dangerous. The study found that most school shooters shared their potentially lethal plans with other students, but that students who knew of planned attacks rarely told adults.” Threat Assessment in Schools

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What happens if I do not address an issue presented to me by a student using ‘Talk About It?’
Students today can slide a note under your door, leave you a voice mail, send an email to your school address, or sit outside your office waiting to divulge sensitive information and never be seen.  With ‘Talk About It®,’ each school selects those faculty members who willingly choose to be listed as recipients of student messages to ensure the optimum use of the service.  This is typically not every faculty member but a select list of administrators, counselors, teachers, coaches, school resource officers and nurses who are alerted in real-time via email every time a student sends them a message. To ensure all messages are responded to ‘Talk About It’ provides an availability tool that allows each faculty member to forward his messages to another on the list should he be unavailable to answer student messages.  Topic rules allow us to automatically copy designated staff members, like your SRO, on messages about topics like Suicide or Weapons to ensure it is dealt with in a timely manner. Cell phone text alerts can be activated to send real-time alerts to your cell phone.  Lastly, usage reports provide statistics on the number of messages each staff member is receiving as well as the number to which they have replied. 

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Is it necessary to get “buy in” from the staff before introducing the ‘Talk About It®’ service?
Yes. By opening up this invaluable channel that gives ALL students a voice it is important to have committed staff members replying to student messages.  At any point during the school year additional staff members may be added or removed based on student requests or other reasons.

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Will reports made through the ‘Talk About It®’ service be made public?
No.  This information belongs to the school that may do with it what they like.  AnComm does maintain a permanent record of all messages on our servers should it ever be requested by the school.

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Doesn’t an anonymous reporting vehicle discourage face-to-face interaction?
No.  Students utilizing ‘Talk About It®’ often initiate contact using this anonymous vehicle and end up meeting face to face after their concerns about getting in trouble or disappointing their faculty member is put to rest. ‘Talk About It®’ gives even those students who do feel comfortable discussing issues face-to-face a vehicle to communicate when the issue is potentially embarrassing or when making a face-to-face report could result in retaliation from another student. 

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Will using ‘Talk About It®’ increase my workload?
No.  The average number of messages sent to all staff members in a week to a school of approximately 1,000 students is 20. This usually results in 2 messages per staff member per week.

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Is there any assistance provided by AnComm after the service is launched in my school?
Yes. Your school is assigned a dedicated Account Manager who is always available to assist you. Your Account Manager will create usage reports upon request, load surveys and polls, and train you on new features added to the service. AnComm also has relationships with a school violence specialist should your school need his expertise.