One of the most challenging issues the school community is responsible for addressing is that of bullying.
It is sometimes difficult to observe, as it may not be overt; it is always difficult to understand when it is not reported; and it is difficult to prevent when it is taking place online or on a platform for which the school has no locus of control.
However, even with the challenging nature of identifying the behavior, it is our fundamental responsibility to work to actively prevent, respond and work tirelessly to end these experiences that translate into traumatic experiences for our young people.
As defined by Indiana law, bullying means overt, unwanted, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal or written communications or images transmitted in any manner (including digitally or electronically); physical acts committed; aggression; or any other behaviors committed by a student or group of students against another student with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate or harm the other student and create for the targeted student an objectively hostile school environment that places the targeted student in reasonable fear of harm to the targeted student’s person or property; has a substantially detrimental effect on the targeted student’s physical or mental health; has the effect of substantially interfering with the targeted student’s academic performance; or has the effect of substantially interfering with the targeted student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, and privileges provided by the school.
The Indiana Department of Education requires school districts to report any incidents of bullying, and we must classify these incidents under four categories: physical, verbal, social/relational and electronic or written communication.
As defined, physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. It includes hitting/kicking/punching, spitting, tripping or pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things and making mean or rude hand gestures.
Verbal bullying involves saying mean things. It can include teasing, name-calling, inappropriate sexual comments, taunting or threatening to cause harm.
Social/relational bullying involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying involves telling other children not to be friends with someone, leaving someone out on purpose, spreading rumors about someone or embarrassing someone in public.
Electronic/written communication involves cyber-bullying, collective or group note writing and any bullying undertaken through the use of electronic devices (computer, cellphones).
School districts are required to train all staff about this behavior. Our school district uses a “Safe Schools” library platform that has a training session on bullying. It dives into four considerations that school staff must think about when identifying bullying. They are: The history between the individuals — have there been past conflicts? Power differential — is there an imbalance of power? Repetition — has this or a similar incident happened before? Is the individual worried that it may happen again? And, are any of the individuals involved in a gang? All staff are required to engage in this training session.
One of the things that I love about Brown County Schools the most is how much all systems within our school community care about the boys and girls we serve. We hurt when we learn that our students are hurting, and bullying is one of the primary behaviors that places our students in this position. Our paraprofessionals, teachers, administrators and all school staff work very hard to address students’ concerns as related to bullying. The challenge is that even with these efforts, we know that our students are still hurting and still experiencing these issues.
We are working to always improve in the delivery of services to address bullying. First, we introduced a Safe Schools anonymous hotline where anyone can call/text/email tips regarding bullying or other safety concerns. This hotline is being used at least three times per week and our school administrators respond immediately when tips are received. We encourage anyone to use this hotline which can be accessed on our website, through a button that says, “Safe Schools – Report It.” If you click on that button, you will be taken to the anonymous hotline. Our website is browncountyschools.com.
Brown County Schools just received the Lilly Endowment Inc. counseling grant. This grant will expand counseling services and will also deliver a social-emotional learning curriculum to all of our grade levels.
We have already purchased the Botvin Lifeskills curriculum from an AT&T grant that was just received and we are expanding the curriculum all the way down to Grade 5 and will purchase new curriculum for Grades K-4 so all of our students are addressed.
This expansion of services will directly target bullying behaviors with the intention of elimination.
We genuinely believe in the power of proactive intervention of bullying behaviors by intentionally teaching the behaviors we want to see.
Bullying is obviously a behavior we don’t want to see. You may hear your students talking about “PBIS” initiatives that are taking place in our buildings. PBIS — Positive Behavior Intervention Supports — is a proactive approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture that are needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional and academic success.
We are working every day to expand this philosophy and create the positive culture that we want to achieve where bullying behaviors are extinguished.
We have a school safety commission that is made up of individuals from across the county who assist our school administrators and department directors with best practices for all issues related to school safety. These meetings always address bullying and lately have most often been related to social media. This team is committed to ensuring that the safety and security of our students is our primary focus as an organization, and we will continue to strategize proactive interventions for the elimination of these behaviors.
The most important thing that we can tell a student who is being bullied to do is to report the situation to an adult immediately. Reporting is critical. When we don’t know that something is happening, it is very difficult for us to respond.
Social media is a particularly difficult platform for us to address; however, our school leaders have responded with significant discipline when bullying is taking place on social media that translates into the school day.
I am always disappointed when I hear feedback that Brown County Schools doesn’t do anything about bullying because I know that we work every day to address these behaviors. However, I understand that while I can list all of the things that we are doing to respond to bullying, if someone you love is being bullied, this is one of the worst things to experience and the perception must feel like we aren’t doing anything. Please call the teacher or the administrator of the building where this is taking place and we promise to work together to address the issues.
The mission of our school district, as recently defined by our strategic planning team is, “Brown County Schools provides the highest quality educational experiences where all students are safe, valued, inspired, civically engaged, and globally connected.”
Bullying has no place in this mission. We promise that we won’t stop working on these behaviors until this mission is fully realized.
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See the special insert in this week’s Democrat for more information about bullying prevention.
[sc:pullout-text-end]Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].
