(Riverton, Wyo.) – Jaws dropped at the Riverton School Board meeting Tuesday when Superintendent Terry Snyder reported that a new Internet game out there urges kids to kill themselves. The information came from a six-year-old student, a first grader, who was telling classmates about the on-line app, Snyder reported.
Snyder said he was appalled that a student that young was seeing such material on the World Wide Web. He said district staff was informed about the challenge game to keep their eyes on a student’s use of the Internet.
Ashgrove Elementary Principal NeCole Hernandez said she learned about the “game” from the School’s Resource Officer, Tyler Larson. Hernandez said Larson was worried that other kids would try to find it. Hernandez called the so-called game cyberbullying and wanted to create awareness with school parents. “There are dangerous apps out there that we are seeing kids getting access to, even six-year-olds.”
“This is the part we want to stress,” she said, “that there are so many dangerous things on the Internet. I would ask parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing on-line. They know how to get into things that adults don’t know about. They’ve grown up with the Internet and it’s intuitive to them.”
The Ashgrove principal said it is sad that there are people out there who want to hurt kids. “Parents be vigilant,” she said.