Skip to main content
Safe Schools Central Oregon

Potential strategies Technology

Phase 0: write down what we would not build

Proposed, for board reviewFirst 90 days; policy adopted by day 30; reviewed quarterly through year two

Phase 0: write down what we would not build

Adopt a one-page technology policy in the first month: use existing state and county channels first; no app, no local tip channel, no youth platform, no monitoring product; build only small, static, bilingual web pages; hold no youth-identifying data; budget three years of hosting; and name a receiving institution and a sunset date for anything built. Launch a plain bilingual site with a Get Help Now page.

The engagement data argue against a standalone app. Across 93 mental health apps, median 30-day retention was 3.3 percent, and SafeOregon’s own app carried only 5.4 percent of tips last quarter while the web form carried more than two thirds. Oregon already has a statewide reporting system with a live person answering 24 hours a day, so a second local channel would only split tips away from it. That is why we propose building little, and naming a receiving institution before building anything.

The privacy rules are real and now reach nonprofits: Oregon’s Consumer Privacy Act has applied to 501(c)(3) organizations since July 2025, federal rules cover any online service directed to children under 13, and school and clinical records have their own laws. Any tool that holds the names of flagged young people would make a volunteer group, in effect, a keeper of health data. The policy therefore would say that the nonprofit holds a clinician roster and counts with no names, never the names of young people.

What the group would build in Phase 0 is modest: a plain bilingual website with a Get Help Now page pointing to SafeOregon, 988, YouthLine and the Stabilization Center, a newsletter list, a volunteer sign-up for adults, and a two-paragraph privacy notice on every form. Two named stewards, one technical and one clinical, would review every form before it goes live. The policy is also the written answer to the donor who wants a branded app.

Why we think it works

What we would do

  1. Board adopts the one-page policy by day 30 and posts it: use before build; data minimization; no youth-identifying records held by the nonprofit; bilingual by default; a three-year hosting budget; a named receiver and sunset date for anything built; and the retention and tip-channel numbers printed as the answer to any donor who wants an app.
  2. Register a domain and a PO box; set up a low-cost static host, an email list tool and a shared calendar; intake is by phone only and the website carries no referral form; a two-paragraph privacy notice (the site collects nothing beyond newsletter sign-ups and adult volunteer contact details) sits on every form.
  3. Publish the Get Help Now page in English and Spanish pointing to SafeOregon, 988, YouthLine, the Deschutes County Stabilization Center and the Crook and Jefferson county crisis lines, and offer the page to districts, the counties and 211info to link.
  4. Name one volunteer technology steward and one clinician data steward; the data steward reviews every new form; the stewards keep the tracked list of data requests to Oregon State Police, the Oregon Judicial Department and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), and document administrator access on commodity tools so a volunteer's departure does not strand the site.
  5. Name a communications lead and state in the policy that any social media monitoring covers the group's own channels and safe messaging after an event, never residents' or students' accounts.
  6. Adopt a short, unbranded checklist of questions for any district considering detection or surveillance technology (independent evaluations, false positive rates, what happens to the data), citing the federal enforcement action against a school weapons scanner, and circulate it through the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) only on request.
  7. Review the roadmap quarterly with the Safe Schools Alliance and the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance so nothing duplicates systems the ESD, the counties or Oregon State Police already run.

How we would know it is working

  • Policy adopted and posted by day 30
  • Zero youth-identifying records held by the nonprofit at every quarterly review
  • Get Help Now page live in both languages by day 90 and offered to every district, the counties and 211info to link, with the number that link reported
  • Click-throughs from the site to SafeOregon, 988 and YouthLine reported each quarter
  • Hosting and tools funded for 36 months in the budget

What could get in the way

A donor who wants a branded app will keep asking, and a volunteer developer may drift away.
The written policy and the retention and tip-channel numbers live on the website; commodity tools, documented administrator access and two named stewards.
A social media monitor named in the roadmap sounds like surveillance of local kids' accounts.
The policy states plainly that monitoring covers the group's own channels and safe messaging after an event, never residents.
A detection technology checklist with a civil liberties group's name on it is read as advocacy by some boards and some gun owners.
Adopt the questions as the group's own, unbranded, cite the federal enforcement action as the reason, and send it only when a district asks.

Who we would work with: Fiscal sponsor, Volunteer web developer and clinician data steward, The ESD's Safe Schools Alliance and the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance (quarterly review), Oregon State Police SafeOregon, Lines for Life (988 and YouthLine), Deschutes County Behavioral Health, 211info

All strategiesTell us what you think