The state of Oregon has a tip line for students, parents, and community members to report any concerns about school safety in a confidential or anonymous way. It’s called SafeOregon.
Concerns could be related to students considering self-harm, harming others, larger threats against the school community- the list goes on.
SafeOregon became law in 2016 through HB 4075. A task force charged with improving safety and security at schools across the state made the recommendation for a statewide reporting program. The tip line is managed by Oregon State Police.
The latest annual report showed a significant increase in the number of concerns shared via SafeOregon in the previous school year. More than 3,300 tips came in during the 2023-2024 academic period, with 40% of those tips being made by students. Bullying and harassment were the top concerns reported.
Lisa Miller is the SafeOregon School Safety Tip Line Program Analyst.
KLCC’s Love Cross spoke with Miller to learn more about the tip line.
Lisa Miller: When a tip comes in, the tips actually come into a call center and that call center is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week with live people. So, when those tips come in, the call center, staff, actually triage the information, get as much information as they possibly can from the tips to determine if it's something that needs to be responded to very quickly or if it's something that maybe just happened and there's a little more time to investigate it. And then they actually push that information back over to the school that the information needs to get to. So, hopefully, when the tip comes in, the tipster knows exactly what school the information is directed to- that information will be pushed back to the school itself and then the school can decide what to do with that information when they receive it.
Love Cross: Can you share any examples of how tips have led to successful interventions or prevented some incidents?
Miller: There have been instances where a credible threat has been made, where a student was going to come in and there was some violence that was going to happen at a school directed at a specific student and that was intervened before the student actually got on campus. So, we have those situations where we know that the tip line has saved lives. A lot of times they're things that we can't talk about. So they're not things that come out in the news but they do happen.
Cross: How does safe Oregon handle false or misleading tips? And does that have any impact on how you manage the system?
Miller: There will be times where a tip will come in where it seems to be maybe a joke, maybe a prank, but there's not enough information to really say that it is, it takes a little time to, to look at it and investigate it a little bit because it's always going to be investigated. But there's not a lot of them that come in like that. Part of my role is tracking the tips that come in and analyzing specifically what types of incidents are being reported and the number of tips that are coming in that are pranks are very, very low. It's maybe 2 or 3% of the tips that come in are pranks. It's not really as big of an issue as we would think it would be.
Cross: That's good to know. I'm curious- it's an anonymous tip line- it can be anonymous if the submitter so chooses that. So, how do you go about ensuring the confidentiality and, and essentially the safety of those who submit tips?
Miller: That's a very good question. It's a really important piece of the tip line because we know that individuals that use the tip line, sometimes they won't use it if they think that someone's going to find out that they're submitting the information. If someone reports information through the tip line and asks to be anonymous, that information will stay with the call center and they're legally required to keep that information.
Cross: And this has been in place for a few years now. Do you have any numbers of how many tips you receive- anything that we can try to make sense of, you know, how much this is being used every year.
Miller: Our numbers have been going up and up. This last school year, we actually brought in over 3,000 tips for the year, which was a 27% increase than the year before.
Cross: I think the most important part of this conversation obviously is how someone can contact SafeOregon.
Miller: If they have a tip, go on our website at SafeOregon.com. There is a web form that can be filled out directly on the website. And then also there is a phone number that individuals can use to report a tip. That phone number is 844-472-3367 that also can receive texts as well. And then we also have an email address that tips can be emailed tip@safeoregon.com. And then there is a mobile app that can be downloaded as well on cell phones and whatever method a tipster decides they want to use, there's a live person on the other end that's going to receive that tip immediately and start gathering that information and triaging it to determine how to respond to that.
Cross: Ok, Lisa Miller- thank you so much for this information. We really appreciate it.
Miller: I appreciate the conversation. Thank you.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
