July 26, 2008
Attorney General Bill McCollum News Release
March 25, 2008
  en Español

Media Contact: Sandi Copes
Phone: (850) 245-0150

McCollum: CyberSafety Messages Reaches More Than 50,000 Students

~ CyberSafety program now in more than 120 schools throughout the state ~


TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his CyberSafety Program has exceeded the 50,000 student mark, reaching 52,941 students to date throughout the state. The program combines real-life stories and examples to help middle and high school students identify ways they could be victimized by predators online and encourages safe internet use. Members of the Attorney General’s Child Predator CyberCrime Unit have been bringing the 50-minute cybersafety program students statewide since the beginning of the school year. The school which pushed the program over the 50,000 student mark was Sebastian Middle School in St. Johns County.

“Nothing is more important than protecting our children, and education is the key to winning the fight against internet child predators,” said Attorney General McCollum. “This cybersafety message will save lives, and I applaud the principals who have made it a priority to get this information to their students.”

Principal Kelly Battell of Sebastian Middle School remarked that all 600 of the school’s 6th, 7th and 8th graders heard the Attorney General's message on staying safe from predators while on the computer and at least one student told her that he planned to immediately change his MySpace account as soon as he got home because he realized he was sharing too much information with the public.

“It was shocking for us to realize how many of our underage students have a MySpace account. The victim advocate presenting the program held the students’ full attention because it was something they all could relate to,” said Principal Battell. “If we helped one student to be safe, the time was well-spent.”

Earlier this year, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith announced a statewide CyberSafety challenge to school principals to sign their schools up for CyberSafety Education presentations. The challenge is part of Attorney General McCollum’s goal to reach every middle and high school in the state with this critical safety message. Two challenge winners will be announced in May – the district that signs up the largest total number of schools for presentations and the district that signs up the highest percentage of its schools for presentations. The winning districts will receive special CyberSafety presentations hosted in person by Attorney General McCollum and Commissioner Smith this fall.

Principals can visit http://www.safeflorida.net/safeschools to log into a site developed specifically to register schools to receive the Attorney General’s CyberSafety presentation, and then sign up for presentations at a time that works with their schedules. The presentations are available to schools as well as parent groups and have been hailed as among the best in the nation by John Walsh, co-founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and host of America’s Most Wanted.