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

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.

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.

Before the Damge is Done...

IDEA does not really focus on preventive measures. Many schools are only interested in tertiery care yet these small percentage of students take up almost the whole time of a school psychologist's job.

Is prevention also a feasible tool in reducing the number of children at risk? What can we do as school psychologists, in terms of prevention strategies, to reduce the number of kids with intensive emotional or behavioral problems?

This blog was created by Alaafia Ajibade and Mike Drozdick.

From our Schools to our Prison Pipeline

Failure to provide appropriate behavioral interventions may be contributing to delinquency among students with disabilities. Students of color, students with disabilities, and especially poor black males, are at greatest risk for being suspended repeatedly in a single school year, raising serious questions about the adequacy of behavioral supports that are being provided.

Effective interventions and programs that reduce risk and enhance protective factors for youths at risk for delinquency exist. These have the potential to reduce the human costs of victimization and save tax dollars in both the short and long terms. The school-to-prison pipeline is preventable, but harnessing the political will to do so is difficult. This challenge may well prove to be more formidable than accumulating the knowledge base required to reverse the flow from the school-to-prison pipeline toward the school-to-graduation-to-postsecondary-education path. Placing pressure on leaders to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric of zero tolerance and getting the “disruptive kids out of class” to address these complex problems and glaring racial disparities with compassion, care, knowledge, and determination will not be easy.

Adult prisons and juvenile halls are riddled with children who have traveled through the school-to-prison pipeline. Approximately 68 percent of state prison inmates in 1997 had not completed high school. Seventy-five percent of youths under age eighteen who have been sentenced to adult prisons have not passed tenth grade. An estimated 70 percent of the juvenile justice population suffers from learning disabilities, and 33 percent read below the fourth grade level. The single largest predictor of later arrest among adolescent females is having been suspended, expelled, or retained during the middle school years.

Yet despite the strong relationships that exist between troubled educational histories and subsequent arrest and incarceration, the specific ways in which schools may either contribute to or prevent the flow of students into the criminal justice system remains largely unexplored. Given the growing overall numbers of the prison population—now at a record 2.1 million—in the United States, along with the glaring racial disproportionality within this population, achieving a more accurate and complete understanding of these relationships is urgent.

As school psychologists how can we help to replace the school-to- prison pipeline with a school- to- post -secondary training path? Are there interventions that we know about that address the lack of skill development in some children? What kinds of behaviors are children exhibiting that require such restrictive placements? Are these placements in settings like those used for the "educably mentally retarded" or "emotionally disturbed"? Are these settings providing the kind of opportunities for educational and social growth that children and adolescents need?

Posted by Tammarrah Jones.

Who's right is it anyway?

In New Jersey v. T.L.O., the Supreme Court held that students have a 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search in the schools.

This mainly applies to searching the student's personal property, such as a book bag. Well, what about random drug testing? Should schools be permitted to conduct random drug testing? If so, who is subject to it? The entire student body? Members of clubs and sports teams? Does this violate a student's privacy, or do we as school personnel and/or parents have a duty to protect children from the harm drugs can do?

Who will protect my privacy anymore?!?!

This blog was created by Jessica Tubertini.

Facing the Virtual Reality of Bullying

Cyberbullying may involve the use of instant messaging (IM), small text messages (SMS), email, chat rooms or bash boards, websites, and voting booths. Because of the anonymity, children are more likely to say things that they would never say face-to-face. There is no escape from this type of bullying because it occurs twenty four hours a day. A victim feels more vulnerable and alone because the emotional damage lasts a lot longer than a black eye.

The story of thirteen year old Alex from Virginia cannot be forgotten. Like other teenagers, Alex spent a lot of time on the computer. Unfortunately, during this time, a group of girls teased and tormented him about his size and physical ability through an instant messaging service. In June 2004, Alex shot himself with his grandfather's gun. This suicide was linked to cyberbullying after searching his computer because all files had been deleted except a note stating, "The only way to get the respect you deserve is to die." How many other students have to die before schools nationwide acknowledge and prevent this form of bullying?

School districts often find themselves caught between their legal and moral obligation to provide a safe environment that promotes learning and their students' constitutional right to freedom of speech and privacy. The popularity of social networking is rapidly increasing. Myspace.com currently has more than one hundred million members and similar sites are continuously popping up. This makes one point very clear: this issue is not going away. What can we do as school psychologists to prevent cyberbullying in schools and homes without infringing on the student's constitutional rights?

This Blog was created by Katie Blades.