Bullying is not a new fight for school officials, teachers, and parents; if anything, it’s the oldest battle educators have fought since the time when schools began. But with the advent of cyber bullying (same old bullying, new forums such as Facebook) and with the proliferation of GLBTQ-identified teenage suicides over the past year, national attention has once again turned to the ways that kids (and even adults!) can be mean to each other. As a parent, you are probably concerned, and rightfully so, with what your child’s schools are doing to combat this insidious and pervasive practice.
What with the spate of school shootings, such as the 1999 tragedy that took place in Columbine, Colorado, and other bully-related assaults, what was once thought of as a rite of passage is now frowned upon by school officials, from kindergarten through college, where even fraternity and sorority hazing has been outlawed. Schools have taken the lead now in practicing bullying prevention as well as developing, implementing, and evaluating programs that are designed to create positive classroom communities. The educational system is expected, not surprisingly, to provide a safe space for its students.
So what are states doing to implement these strategies? To begin with, most schools are being incredibly proactive when it comes to cyber bullying, which uses social media sites and the internet to target its victims. Because of First Amendment rights and the fact that most cyber bullying takes place away from school and not on school time, it’s a gray area legally. On the bright side, over thirty states have mandated regulations that require schools to deal with cyber bullying, while thirteen more take responsibility for disciplining cyber bullies, even when their activities do not occur on school grounds.
Hawaii and Montana, despite their lack of anti bullying legislation, are currently working on creating policies to deal with these problems.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education is about to implement a study designed to look at the way that state laws that claim to practice bullying prevention actually work when schools attempt to invoke them.
In a forward step for the GLBTQ community, California is working toward establishing laws that specifically target the prevent of anti-gay bullying; they also currently require that their schools teach about the positive contributions GLBTQ people have made in society. Massachusetts’ laws have made it possible for their school staff to undergo extensive training so they are able to recognize and combat bullying when they run into it. Washington state now requires that its school personnel must notify the proper channels when they discover bullying. And New Jersey is set to deploy it “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights,” which they are justifiably proud in describing as one of the most stringent anti-bullying laws in the country.
Bullying happens. But that doesn’t mean that schools should turn a blind eye to it, and as more and more of these anti bullying laws take effect, school officials will have firm legal ground on which to stand when dealing with those who bully.
Sarah Danielson is a contributing writer for Doyle Raizner, a team of dedicated Jones Act Attorneys based in Houston, Texas.
