"Across Canada, schools have a duty of care to protect children," education professor Shaheen Shariff told an audience of educators at the university's Faculty Club last night.

"The courts, however, haven't yet established just how much schools are responsible."

Shariff is working with researchers in British Columbia to create a set of legal guidelines for schools on cyber-bullying. According to one 2004 study of students in Grades 4 to 8, 35 per cent of kids said they were threatened online.

It's a difficult issue for schools, because unlike regular bullying, cyber-threats are usually sent anonymously and from home computers.

While cyber-bullying can be as devastating as physical threats or intimidation, some students won't complain for fear of losing their computer privileges.

"I think cyber-bullying is one of the biggest issues facing our schools," said Nancy Hain, assistant director of secondary schools at the Lester B. Pearson School Board.

"Misuse of technology is a big concern."

Hain was principal of John Rennie High School in Pointe Claire last year, when a student was arrested for compiling an online "hit list" of classmates she wanted dead. Hain immediately called police, who found the list's author.

"That went beyond cyber-bullying; it went to cyber-threats," Hain recalled. "It opened up our eyes as educators."

Victims of cyber-bullying are increasingly turning to courts and human rights tribunals for redress.

In Quebec, Ghyslain Raza - filed a $160,000 lawsuit in 2003 against students from his Trois Rivieres high school for uploading a private video of him practising lightsabre moves as in a Star Wars movie.

In Ontario, David Knight, a teenager from Burlington, is suing his former high school for negligence after classmates accused him of pedophilia on a website.

Shariff experienced cyber-bullying seven years ago when her daughter Farhana, then 15, received an anonymous email on the family's home computer.

"You don't know who I am. But I know who you are. I've been watching you at school," the note read. The letter urged her daughter to sleep with her eyes open if she didn't want to die.

Shariff immediately contacted her Internet service provider, along with the high school. The Shariffs, who lived in B.C. at the time, also spoke to police.

Although neither the school nor the police could trace the

email, repeated questioning of students by the principal and teachers led the note's author to step forward.

He was one of a handful of boys in Farhana's Grade 10 class. The boys didn't want to kill her. They didn't even have a grudge against her, Farhana Sheriff, 22, recalled at the forum last night. It was simply a bad joke.

"The most disturbing part was that it could have been from anyone," she said.

"For a 15-year-old, it was really frightening."