Anti-Bullying Law...NOW WHAT?!?

"A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself."
- Dan Olweus


Bullying
Bullying is one of the most important issues children are faced with during their school career. The four main types of bullying in school are physical bullying, verbal bullying, social bullying, and cyber bullying. Physical bullying is any unwanted physical contact intended to cause bodily harm which includes punching, kicking, or shoving. Verbal bullying includes things like insults, name-calling, and racial slurs. Social bullying is the spreading of rumors and gossip or the outright exclusion or isolation of another. Cyber bullying is any form of bullying through the use of the Internet or other electronic devices such as cell phones. Bullying can affect more than just the bully and the victim. It can affect the bystanders, the general atmosphere of a school, school faculty and staff, the families of all involved, and the entire community. Kids are bullied every day in almost every school all around the world and many of them do not know where to turn for help or even if help is available.

• What should a victim do? Report to someone? What if gets worse? Fight back?
• What should a bystander do? Help? How?
• If a victim fights back against the bully, should there be consequences? If so, what? If not, why?

Statistics

• "Over half, about 56 percent, of all students have witnessed a bullying crime take place while at school." www.bullyinstatistics.org
• According to Cyber bullying statistics from the i-SAFE foundation: Over half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying.
• More than 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyber threats online.
• Over 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet.
• Well over half of young people do not tell their parents when cyber bullying occurs.

• Bullycide is a term used to describe suicide as the result of bullying. New bullying statistics 2010 are reporting that there is a strong connection between bullying, being bullied and suicide, according to a new study from the Yale School of Medicine. Suicide rates are continuing to grow among adolescents, and have grown more than 50 percent in the past 30 years. www.bullyingstatistics.org

It is important that we realize what damage bullying has done to every aspect of a student’s life. Whether it be a small or large instance of bullying, it is always an issue that needs to be addressed. New Jersey has decided to prove that their zero tolerance for bullying has reached an ultimate high. The new Anti-Bullying Law is hoping to change these statistics for the better.

NJ Anti-Bullying Law
New Jersey enacted its public school anti-bullying statute in 2002. In 2007, the law was amended to include cyber-bullying and in 2008 the law required that each school district posted its anti-bullying policy on its website as well as distribute it annually to the parents or guardians of the students from their district. The most recent amendment, known as the “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act”, has been touted by many to be the toughest in the nation. Below are the most significant changes that are intended to strengthen the procedures that occur after incidents of harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students that occur in school and off school grounds.

• Information regarding the district’s policy must be incorporated into the a school’s employee training program and must be provided to all staff, volunteers who have significant contact with students, and those persons contracted by the district to provide services to students.
• Board members, whether newly appointed, elected, re-elected, or re-appointed, need to complete a training program on harassment, intimidation, and bullying in schools (but only once).
• Training on harassment, intimidation, and bullying in schools shall be provided by the New Jersey School Boards Association, through the consultation from a myriad of recognized experts in school bullying
• The principal must notify the district superintendent of schools of all the action taken, which the superintendent must then report twice a year to the board of education.
• The reports will then be used to grade each school in their effort, and the averaging of the schools will result in the district’s grade. The grade received will then be posted on the district’s website within 10 days.
• Acts of harassment, intimidation, or bullying must be reported verbally to the school principal on the same day and in writing within 2 days. The principal must then inform the parents or guardians of all involved parties of the incident and the available intervention services. This excludes cases when the incident occurs between students in the special services school district, students in special education, or students with disabilities, in which case, the school employee will have the discretion to determine if the incident merits a formal report.
• The principal must then initiate an investigation within 1 school day of the report which shall be conducted by a school anti-bully specialist. The investigation must be completed within 10 days of the written report. The results of the investigation will then be reported to the superintendent of schools within 2 days of the completion of the investigation. After this, the results of the investigation must be reported to the board of education and the parents of guardians of the involved students.
• The parents or guardians need to receive the results within 5 days of it being reported to the board. They may then request a hearing before the board and this request must be met within 10 days.
• The parent, student, guardian, or organization may file a complaint with the Division on Civil Rights within 180 days of the incident.
• The school’s response to the incident can be defined by the principal in conjunction with the school anti-bullying specialist.
• The school district must conduct a re-evaluation, reassessment, and review of its policy, making any necessary revisions and additions.

Positives/Negatives of NJ Anti-Bullying Law
The passing of the new Anti-Bullying law has put into action a whole new group of responsibilities on the school systems. The law has successfully spread a greater awareness of bullying in schools and the effects it has on all students. This comes at a time when bullying related suicides are being increasingly reported in the media. The law has even named the first school week in October as “Week of Respect”, if schools were not previously motivated to deal with harassment, intimidation, and bullying they most certainly are now. The law imposes many consequences onto school districts if they are not following through with reporting and setting up intervention and prevention plans.

The Anti-Bullying law lays out steps that the school must follow from the moment they are informed of a bullying incident until the investigation and report are completed. With the good intentions of the law also come many flaws. It requires training of teachers and staff members in the district, however, where are the workshops and training programs? Are we responsible for setting them up ourselves, and with what resources? The law also states that each public school’s principal is require to appoint the currently employed school counselor, school psychologist or other similarly trained individual as the school anti-bullying specialist. This is a great idea and there should be an anti-bullying specialist at each school but being similarly trained does not help when the training is not about bullying. Most school psychologists would be uncomfortable being labeled as a specialist in a field they are not trained in. School districts will also be graded on their efforts to “implement policies and programs consistent with the ‘Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act’ not on their efforts to identify harassment, intimidation, or bullying.”

The law gives no guidelines to what intervention and prevention plans need to be implemented besides the fact that they need to address bullying, so on what guidelines will they be grading districts? The grade is then required to be posted on the district website, what happens if a school receives a low or failing grade? Will funding be affected? This can become another situation similar to the No Child Left behind Act where schools who need funding the most, in order to set up and implement programs, are not the ones who receive it and are instead punished.

• Should we already be prepared to handle these issues?
• Will grading districts motivate them to do better or only hurt them?
• Should it be the state or the individual school districts who are responsible for setting up training programs? Is it not each district that knows their children and the way their system works best?

This blog was created by:Nick Pomponio, Karena Ferrera, Ifat Sade, Dennis Chae, Charlotte O'Hara, Michelle Cervino

Can You Please Tell Me Who is in Charge Here????

There has been a lot of discussion in the educational community about creating a merit pay scale directly influenced by the outcomes of performance based standards. Who should be the one to determine how educators would be rated and compensated based on student performance outcomes? Should it be an educational administrator, a teacher, or someone outside the education sector, such as the Commissioner of Education who may come into office with limited public school experience?

Some states have established performance standards for learning that are designed to guide the instructional process.

1. How do you feel about states having different performance standards when the outcomes can directly influence pay and how much funding a school district receives?
   
2. How can federal funding such as "Race to the Top" be fairly distributed among states that have different performance standards?
   
3. Why shouldn't all states have the same performance standards for learning?

Why shouldn't this profession be treated like any other job where performance dictates continued employment, promotions, and incremental salary increases? What will happen to those in tenured positions if a merit pay scale is established and supported by the community? If they are grandfathered in, would that be enough to provide sustained motivation to improve the delivery of service to students?

This Blog was created by: Jennifer Fandino and Linda Bowles.

School Violence: What's the Limit?

If we think back to Columbine and Virginia Tech, hind sight reveals many discrepancies between what staff should have done and what actually happened with students who are troubled. How far should educators go to protect their schools? To what extent, though, are we violating the student's rights? Some people think that metal detectors create legal concerns. NASP recognizes that the role of a school psychologist is a vital one.

It “encourages school psychologists’ to take a leadership role in developing comprehensive approaches to violence reduction and crisis response in schools.” (NASP 2006) As per, NASP, school psychologists are trained to provide all students with valuable resources and also develop effective interventions.

But should the responsibility in developing comprehensive approaches to violence reduction fall mainly on the the school psychologist?

This Blog was created by Ana Palma, Alarys Medina and Amanda Bisheit.

Can You Spare some CHANGE????

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” –John Muir, environmentalist.

Working as school psychologists we find ourselves as part of the “system”; collaborating with students, teachers, administrators, and parents a daily routine. In our discussions and readings the focus for school psychologists has been to shift our roles in that “system”. Are we prepared to be systems-change agents? What areas do we need to show competency in?

If we are prepared to be system-change agents, we must then consider the process by which we can initiate this change. In our readings, this is presented in terms of certain steps that need to be taken. Merrel, Ervin, & Gimpel (2006) state that “when creating readiness for change, the first consideration is the development of vision and leadership” (pg 235). Some may consider No Child Left Behind as an example of a systems change that requires a certain level of vision, so that others can see its potential for improving educational standards. What are you thoughts on this? Has this initiative met the goals it sets forth?

This Blog was created by Mark Newman & Anel DeJesus.

Are You Ready????

In the Jacob and Hartshorne text it states: "Maintaining up-to-date knowledge of school policies and practices that have an impact of onthe welfare of children and sharing that expertise in consultation with school principals and other decision makers, may enable school psychologists to to effect organizational change that can have a positive impact on large numbers of children."

This poses an important set of questions:

1. Do you feel that you are ready to take on this role? We are only given one class that has to do with school law. How are you going tokeep yourself updated and with the current times?

2. Do you think in the beginning you will feel comfortable telling others including administrators what to do or how to do something?

3. What do you do if you come across a principal who disagrees withyour opinion or decision even though you truly feel that it is theright way to go? Do you fight for the child's right or do you quiet down in fear of losing your job or developing an uneasy relationship within your school?

This blog was created by Denise Torres and Stefanie Tych.

A Cry for HELP!!!

According to Ervin, Gimpel, and Merrell (2006), development of knowledge and skills in prevention services is an integral part of school psychology training programs. Part of this is the prevention and evaluation of suicide and violent acts. This emphasis is become more and more common with the increase in school violence and the publicity that school shooting have had. Often the school psychologist is believed to hold the most knowledge of suicide, depression, violent tendencies and so forth in the school.

Yet do you feel prepared to take on this role? As school psychologists we will be asked to evaluate whether a student is on a path to violence as well as suicide.

Reddey (2001) has a three principle process to assess a student's likelihood of violent actions: "(1) Targeted violence is a result of an interaction among the students, situation, target, and setting; there is not single "type" of student prone to such acts;
(2) evaluators must make a distinction between a student who makes threats versus poses a threat;
(3) targeted violence is often the product of an understandable pattern of thinking and behavior".

-Do we have any required classes that offer instruction on preventive strategies or risk factors of suicide?

-Do you feel prepared to make decision on whether a student is likely to commit a violent act or tendency to commit suicide?

If you do feel comfortable what preparations did you make or classes did you take?

This blog was created by Rebecca Guenther and Danielle Allegra.

Pregnancy Pact

The situation is brought to you as a school psychologist that a group of girls in your building are planning to become pregnant at the same time because of the publicity it generated.

How do you handle this situation? What are the ethical and legal ramifications of your plans of actions?

This blog was created by Alaafia Ajibade & Mike Drozdick

Confidentiality is Key

What are the limits of confidentiality and providing direct services to the student?

According to Jacobs and Hawthorne (2006, p. 65) confidentiality is described as an ethical decision or agreement not to expose any personal information about the individual unless:

· The individual requests that information be shared with another party

· There is a situation involving danger to the individual or others

· There are legal obligations to testify in a court of law

As school psychologist, we are encouraged to discuss the limitations of confidentiality at the onset of services. We are asking our clients to share their innermost thoughts and feelings with us and assuring them that the information will remain confidential, contingent upon the content.

Do you think that a conditional promise of confidentiality will help or hinder the psychologist’s effectiveness with the client?

This Blog was created by Danielle Muhammad and Prattima Kaulessar.

Taken from The Black Briefcase – The Blog of The Life of a School Psychologist…

“Today we met with teachers to discuss the accommodations page in each child's IEP. This meeting usually isn't a big deal because the teacher has only known the child for a couple of days at this point. We met with the specials teachers (art, music, gym and media) to discuss all of the children who have IEPs. We had to discuss the new child who has a history of sexual abuse. We had to make certain arrangements so that the child would have an escort for whenever she left the room. We had to inform the teachers about this plan, without explaining why. It was hard to emphasize the need for constant supervision without giving any details. I adhere to confidentiality, almost to the point where I don't even share information with team members. I don't participate in hearsay, if someone wants information I tell him or her to consult the file, if he or she has permission to do so.I am sensitive to this child's needs, but I'm also sensitive to the safety and well-being of the other children. I also don't want to single-out this child, but I'm not sure how to ensure safety without doing so. This will be tough.”

Confidentiality is a huge issue in many practices, especially in that of school psychology. The code of ethics state that it’s important that we keep students’ information safe and that we respect their privacy and that of their families. But to what degree do you think this is actually put into practice in schools? Do you believe that school personnel abide by confidentiality rules such as the School Psychologist in this article or do you think that they do participate in hearsay with their colleagues? What is it like at your school?

http://theblackbriefcase.blogspot.com/2008/09/confidentiality.html

This Blog was created by Denise Torres and Stefanie Tych.