BILLINGS — Many Montana students are starting out the school year with a new safety resource designed to prevent school shootings, suicides and bullying. It's an anonymous reporting system via Safer Montana, and submitting a tip is as simple as sending a text or calling a hotline.
“Thank you for calling the Safer Montana student safety hotline,” says a tip line recorded message.
The anonymous reporting system is designed to triage safety threats as they come in from students, parents, teachers and community members.
“Our goal with this program is really opening another channel for community members to be partners to make sure our kids are safe. That's our main priority,” says Dr. Erwin Garcia, Billings Public Schools Superintendent.
Billings parent Emily Romrell first introduced school district two to the concept. She’s a mom who’s passionate about student safety, even writing a children’s book about school lockdown drills.
“With most mass shooters after the fact, law enforcement goes in and they find that everybody had a piece of the puzzle," Romrell said. "This neighbor heard something, that student at school saw something."
Other districts are also adopting the tipline. Safer Montana is providing it free of charge to any school district in Montana through 2025 via a grant, but schools need to request it. So far 15+ schools have signed up, with the state’s largest school district, Billings, expected to fully roll it out this fall.
Schools/districts participating in the tip line include Columbia Falls, Kalispell, Florence, Stevensville, Arlee, Greenville, Helmville, Laurel, Billings, Moore, Charlo, St. Regis, Hellgate Elementary, Frenchtown, St. Josephs, Loyola High School, Bainville, and Lockwood.
“Most states have a statewide adopted tip line, we don’t, so our intention was to fund a tipline, get it in as many districts as we can, then in a couple of years use data to show its effectiveness and advocate for a statewide adoption,” says Emily Sallee, Montana Safe Schools Center Director.
Safer Montana says the tipline is already saving lives, with four urgent tips related to suicide last year alone, that’s out of 49 total tips. Forty-two were standard and related to bullying and vaping and two were test tips, like not enough mustard at lunch.
“Students will probably test this to see if it works and if you do anything, and then it will be used appropriately,” says Sallee.
Suicide prevention is on the mind of Montana administrators and parents alike after an alarming reportcame out in 2021 showing 10% of students attempted suicide in the past 12 months. Many of those were bullied via text, social media, or in person.
“Montana is the 3rd highest suicide rate in the whole country, and we are experiencing student suicides at least monthly,” says Sallee.
“Any lives that we can save, anything we can do to support our children and to support them in mental crises or situations of depression or clinical issues, we definitely are full force invested in preventing any situation that can lead to the loss of lives,” says Superintendent Garcia.
