BIRTS Foundation Focusing On School Safety

By Brian Miller

CREATED Dec. 26, 2012

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  • The BIRTS Foundation is raising money to implement an anti-bullying system for local schools. It's called the Safe School Program and its being used in 60 schools in four states. Todd Stiede is busy launching the BIRTS foundation in Green Bay to put Video by nbc26.com

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GREEN BAY-- The BIRTS Foundation is raising money to implement an anti-bullying system for local schools.

It's called My Safe Schools and its being used in 60 schools in four states. Todd Stiede is busy launching the BIRTS foundation in Green Bay to put the Safe School Program in every school in the area. "It’s very unfortunate that bullying situations in our schools have increased over the years, we're working on a prevention program that can help students and teachers," Stiede said.

 The Pulaski school district will soon be implementing new software that helps schools keep track of bullying incidents. The BIRTS-- or bullying incident response and tracking software-- can be used by students, parents, teachers and administrators to report any incident of bullying. The school district has been using the Safe Schools Program to reduce bullying for about two years; this software will take those efforts even further. "Bullying has a tremendously negative effect on students there are many deep wounds and emotional scars that are caused by mistreatment of students,” said Dr. Mel Lightner, Superintendent Pulaski School District.

With bullying issues on the rise, the BIRTS foundation hopes to provide schools with ways to prevent bullying by providing materials for school districts otherwise it could not afford.

The George Kress Foundation made the first major donation to the BIRTS foundation. It's supported by the Green Bay Area Chamber Of Commerce