In a move to curb bullying, fourteen  smart and innovative students  Metropolitan Business Academy have developed an app that victims can use to report bullying they’ve experienced .The app: named BOB which stands for “Back Off Bully,” as a technology class project, and under their newly created school company “Spontaneous Tech,” they turned it into a lot more than a project that would just earn them a letter grade.

“Bullying in general is a huge issue. We did a survey at MBA and (found) 35 percent of the students have been bullied, and 67 percent of students knew someone that has been bullied. One out of four students in Connecticut is bullied,” said MBA junior and citywide student council member Michelle Zheng.

There are three aspects to the app: reporting, finding help and educating. Students can submit a bullying complaint anonymously and learn about different types of bullying with a few taps of an iPhone screen or clicks of a mouse.

The “find help” aspect connects students with organizations such as the state Department of Children and Families, the Boys and Girls Village of Milford and MBA services. The app also offers students the option to make an appointment with a school guidance counselor.

Once a student submits a report, the responses are emailed to a point person on the BOB team, and they transfer it to a spreadsheet for the administration to review.

“The administration already uses Google Docs for discipline records and they look at it every morning, so this is just another step,” said Puglisi, who added that the biggest problem they foresee is false reporting.

“But the administration said if two out of 10 reports are true then they will still find it useful,” she added.
The good news is that users don’t need a smart phone or iPad  to BOB since it is a web-based app which can be accessed from a computer anywhere .Good for these innovative kids. What is your say?