Mineola Schools to Address Cyberbullying

Following high-profile suicides by students at Rutgers and a Massachusetts high school, states and the Federal government began taking a closer look at bullying and sexual harassment – particularly the – at the college level.

The campaign is filtering down to the local level after New York passed the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) in September 2010. As part of the new regulations, which goes into effect July 1, 2012, school districts must have in effect policies on bullying/ harassment, inform students and teachers about recognizing bullying, create guidelines relating to the development of non discriminatory instruction and counseling, incorporate awareness and sensitivity into education curriculums, provide a staff member train in relations counseling and report all incidents to the state education department.

Former superintendent for pupil personnel services Janice Patterson gave an overview of the new regulations during Wednesday’s meeting of the Mineola Board of Education at the .

“A big piece is educating parents about what to look for, how to respond to it and administrators about not responding to it,” she said. “And also one of the things in the research is that their parents are held accountable for their children’s behavior.”

Firstly, the district’s code of conduct should be reviewed annually and Patterson said “we need to look closely at” technology as the plan should address cyberbullying, such as posting negative comments against a person online, and sexting - sending or receiving messages or images of a provocative nature through text message or e-mail which can be use to harass or humiliate.

DASA defines harassment as “the creation of a hostile environment by conduct or by verbal threats, intimidation or abuse” which interferes with a student’s learning performance.

“We need a specific policy on bullying and harassment; we don’t have one,” Patterson said. “The problem as I see it is how we the adults are addressing it and handling it or not handling it or not monitoring it or not responding to it.”

According to statistics, 39 percent of students reported that bullying poses a “serious” problem at school, while 66 percent reported that people at school were harassed “because of their looks or body size” some of the time and 57 percent reported that students were bullied or harassed some times on their way they expressed their gender. Half of all high school students admitted they bullied someone in the past year while 47 percent of students report having been bullied in a way that upset them.

Patterson said that often parents are unaware of bullying. “Often times parents don’t know what goes on in the texting and the instant messaging,” she said, nothing that nearly 60 percent of boys who researchers classified as bullies in grades six through nine were convicted of a crime by the age of 24.

“If you were to limit it just to use of your computer equipment, for example, it would go on all day long, in your schools and you wouldn’t be able to do anything,” school attorney Jacob Feldman said. “The goal rally is cyberbullying. The scope of DASA really is much more to face technology more than anything.”

The new district policy should specifically address all forms of bullying, including cyberbullying and harassment. A bully intervention team (BIT) would be established on the building level, consisting of the principal, guidance counselors, teachers and non-teaching staff such as bus drivers, custodians and aides. The team would create a reporting system, consequences and intervention strategies and reward “pro-social” behaviors.

Students as well as parents and all district personnel would need to be trained to report instances of bullying or harassment because “sometimes what we think might just be horsing around and playing should really send up a flag to take a second look because we don’t know how many times this happened to this individual,” Patterson said.

She also suggested the district set up a 24-7 “hotline” for anonymous tips about abuse and “suggestion boxes” in each classroom for students where they “feel comfortable reporting to a responsible adult.”

Character education is included in the curriculum and currently psychologists, social workers and counselors work with students in classrooms, in small groups as well as individually to assess conflicts. Student clubs such as “Increase the Peace” and “” conduct programs on the elementary level focusing on prevention.

“They want publication, they want signs all over the place, they want it in the outreach, they want it on the website, they want in the face of us, the students, every single day that we have no tolerance for it, how you can get help with it and how we should react to it,” Patterson said.

She added that the board should next adopt a policy on bullying, developing a district plan, identify a bully intervention coordinator and develop BIT teams in each building.

“Sometimes its not enough for one person to say it’s a bullying situation,” Patterson said. “When you take it to a team and they look at it globally they can determine its a bullying situation. It could only be one incident that could send a kid off to do something harmful to themselves.”

“I know we need it, but we don’t need the initials,” Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler said, referring to the BIT. “A lot of that will be folded into things we already do. It’s going to be similar people to committees we already have in place.”