Can a Peer-Led Program Actually Get Teens to Care About Safety?

Every month, 430 students at one Texas high school watched two of their own classmates lead an assembly on cyberbullying, online predators, and the gap between who teens are online and who they really are.

McKenzey Roach and Malayna Mitchell are graduating seniors who built and ran their school's monthly digital citizenship program, called CHAT, reaching every student at Lubbock-Cooper High School as part of a DECA project.

In this conversation, they walk through how a mandatory video segment nobody wanted to watch became something students actually engaged with, why they sent an anonymous survey to the entire school before choosing a single topic, and what it felt like to have their opinions on cyberbullying and online safety broadcast to freshmen and seniors alike. You'll hear their honest take on why the same post feels safe on Instagram but terrifying to say out loud, and what they'd tell an incoming freshman about building a social media presence without losing themselves in it.

Key insight: McKenzey and Malayna say the friendships that lasted through high school were the ones built face-to-face, not through a Snapchat quick add. Reach online and real connection, they agree, are not the same thing.

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