Just about all of us have been bullied at some point in school. I know I certainly experienced being called a fag and other anti-gay epithets even as I tried to desperately through my teens and long thereafter to convince myself that"it wasn't really true." And I certainly contemplated suicide many, many times although I did not actively pursue that "solution" until many years later. No one should have to withstand daily abuse and bullying in the nation's public schools. Here in Virginia, anti-bullying statutes are a joke and school administrators and staff feel totally free to turn their backs on victims of bullying and do nothing because there are no real consequences. New Jersey has decided on a far different approach under a new law that becomes effective today. There's a great deal of whining going on as reported in the New York Times and all too typically, school administrators are balking at the new requirements and complaining that they don't have funding for anti-bullying training. I'm sorry, but I have little sympathy for such complaints and had school personnel been doing their jobs to protect all students in the first place, the law would have been unnecessary. The message to administrators, teachers, coaches and students is simple: bullying will not be tolerated and that there will be severe consequences for those who fail to back the policy. Perhaps New Jersey has gone too far, but it's a far better approach than Virginia's do nothing approach. Here are highlights from the Times story:
Under a new state law in New Jersey, lunch-line bullies in the East Hanover schools can be reported to the police by their classmates this fall through anonymous tips to the Crimestoppers hot line. . . . And at North Hunterdon High School, students will be told that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying: if they see it, they have a responsibility to try to stop it.
But while many parents and educators welcome the efforts to curb bullying both on campus and online, some superintendents and school board members across New Jersey say the new law, which takes effect Sept. 1, reaches much too far, and complain that they have been given no additional resources to meet its mandates. The law, known as the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, is considered the toughest legislation against bullying in the nation.
it demands that all public schools adopt comprehensive antibullying policies (there are 18 pages of “required components”), increase staff training and adhere to tight deadlines for reporting episodes.
Each school must designate an antibullying specialist to investigate complaints; each district must, in turn, have an antibullying coordinator; and the State Education Department will evaluate every effort, posting grades on its Web site. Superintendents said that educators who failed to comply could lose their licenses.
The law also requires districts to appoint a safety team at each school, made up of teachers, staff members and parents, to review complaints. It orders principals to begin an investigation within one school day of a bullying episode, and superintendents to provide reports to Trenton twice a year detailing all episodes. Statewide, there were 2,846 such reports in 2008-9, the most recent year for which a total was available.
Even districts that have long made antibullying programs a priority are preparing to step up their efforts, in response to the greater reporting demands. “This gives a definite timeline,” the Westfield superintendent, Margaret Dolan, said, noting the new one-day requirement. “Before, our rule was you need to do it as quickly as possible.”
But Dr. Dolan cautioned that an unintended consequence of the new law could be that students, or their parents, will find it easier to label minor squabbles bullying than to find ways to work out their differences.
No system will be perfect, but it's far past time that abusive students - and their often equally bigoted parents - cease having a license to make the lives of others a living Hell.
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