It's back to school for internet safety in Malverne
Lorraine DiFiglia, the assistant director of education at The Safe Center LI, speaks to students at Malverne High School about staying safe while online. Credit: Danielle Silverman
Inside a Malverne High School gymnasium Thursday, incoming freshmen and transfer students still on summer break got one of the first lessons for the academic year: on cyberbullying.
As part of their orientation, more than 100 students took part in the Back to School Safety program, which walked them through topics like online safety, the importance of reporting concerning behavior online, and how to protect their privacy when using social media platforms.
“Can cyberbullying happen in a group chat?” Lorraine DiFiglia, the assistant director of education at the nonprofit Bethpage-based The Safe Center LI, asked the students. “Can it happen on Snapchat?”
“Yes,” many answered altogether.
“So, we want to be really mindful of the language that we use when we're online,” she told the students, later adding: “We want to make sure that we're always using kind words and we want” to “check what we're sending before we post something.”
The cyberbullying program — attendance was optional, and it was taught by The Safe Center LI — comes as many students report being harassed over digital devices.
Cyberbullying isn't new, but it still raises pressing concerns, experts say. The behavior can be more persistent than typical bullying because people use devices across vast stretches of time, and it can be difficult for parents and teachers to spot, according to stopbullying.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Moreover, cyberbullying could have a long digital trail that can follow students as they seek to gain admission to college or get employment, the website said.
Jennifer Rowland, senior director of education and learning at The Safe Center LI, which helps survivors deal with interpersonal violence including human trafficking, said it’s important to talk to children as young as kindergarten age about cyberbullying. Parents, she said, often give children iPads and phones to play with, and they don't understand the dangers that their young ones could be experiencing online.
But as students begin to enter high school, she said, it’s important for them to learn how to stick up for other people and know where to go for help.
“So, we want to make sure that we have a trusted adult that we can go to, whether that be a school counselor, a parent, a teacher … a friend, to get support,” she said. “Recognizing those red flags early on can help to detect it and prevent it from happening.”
More than 45% of U.S. teens between 13 and 17 say they’ve experienced one of several forms of cyberbullying, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the spring of last year.
Slightly over 30% of teens reported that they have been called an offensive name online or on their cellphones, the survey said. Around 20% said they had false rumors spread on the internet about them, while more than 15% said they were sent unrequested explicit images.
Classes begin in the Malverne district on Sept. 5.
Luciana Valerio, 14, an incoming freshman at the high school, said she experienced online harassment when she was 8.
While playing the Roblox game, Valerio said, a random person began trolling her, telling her that she was horrible and should leave the game.
She told her mother about the incident, she said, and reported it and went on with her day. Asked how the experience has impacted how she uses the internet, she said: “I'm definitely more cautious around, like, friending strangers and stuff.”
For Valerio, Thursday’s program perhaps helped cement lessons around trusting people online, and that she doesn’t “have to be that scared about high school.”
Education: Howard University
Tiffany Cusaac-Smith came to Newsday in 2023 after being a race and history reporter at USA TODAY, where she wrote enterprise and spot articles examining how the past shapes the present. Previously, she worked as the race and justice reporter at the USA TODAY Network of New York, covering issues such as criminal justice reform, housing, environmental justice, health care and politics. At The Journal News/lohud.com in Westchester County, she covered Yonkers, the state's third-largest city. She also worked at The Associated Press in Atlanta.
Honors and Awards: Criminal justice reporting fellowship with the National Press Foundation; New York News Publishers Association award for distinguished investigative reporting; Contributed reporting for Best of Gannett honor; Member of Table Stakes, a program funded by the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund and managed by the American Press Institute to transform local news.
