Today’s school safety challenges don’t stop at the school doors; they often begin online. Social media conflicts, anonymous accounts, cyberbullying, harassment, AI-generated deep fakes, group chat threats, and viral posts can quickly move from a student’s phone to a campus wide safety concern. For school safety directors, administrators, and school resource officers, the challenge is knowing when online drama becomes a safety issue, how to assess the risk, and how to respond without escalating the situation. This engaging workshop will explore a proactive approach to identifying and addressing digital behaviors before they become larger school safety incidents. Participants will examine real-world scenarios involving social media threats, online conflict, anonymous accounts, cyberbullying, and AI misuse, and learn how to distinguish drama, concerning behavior, and potential threats while maintaining student trust and protecting privacy.

Participants will be introduced to three practical Digital4Good tools designed to strengthen a school or district’s digital safety response:

1. Decreasing Online Drama Needs Assessment: Identify vulnerabilities, patterns, and gaps in how your campus currently handles digital conflict and online behavior.
2. Social Media Emergency Plan: Establish a coordinated response process for social media incidents, including roles, communication, documentation, escalation, and follow-up.
3. Threat Assessment Guidebook: Support teams in evaluating concerning online behavior and determining appropriate next steps while keeping student safety at the center.

The goal is not to eliminate social media or respond to every online conflict as a threat. It is to help school safety professionals recognize warning signs, respond proportionately, build trusted reporting systems, and create a campus culture where students feel safe bringing concerns forward.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify digital behaviors and online incidents that may impact campus safety, including threats, harassment, cyberbullying, anonymous accounts, online conflict, and AI-generated or manipulated content.
• Differentiate between online drama, concerning behavior, and potential threats to support more informed and proportionate school safety responses.
• Strengthen digital threat reporting and response protocols by using proactive strategies that build student trust, protect privacy, and encourage students to report concerns before they escalate.
• Apply the Digital4Good Decreasing Online Drama Needs Assessment, Social Media Emergency Plan, and Threat Assessment Guidebook to evaluate current practices and strengthen their school's or district's digital safety response.
• Develop a proactive approach to digital safety that connects school safety personnel, administrators, counselors, educators, students, and families in preventing and responding to online incidents.