Bullying New Policy, Procedures & Forms August 2014

1. Springfield Public School District 186 Bullying New Policy, Procedures & FormsAugust 2014

2. State Legislation • House Bill 5707 was signed into law on June 26, 2014. • States that bullying is contrary to State Law and includes procedures to identify the bully and to provide interventions including the services of all personnel. • Link to the law: • http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/98/PDF/098-0669.pdf

3. Definition of Bullying • Springfield Public School District 186 recognizes violence as any word, look, sign or act that inflicts or threatens to inflict physical or emotional injury or discomfort upon another person’s body, feelings or possessions. We also recognize bullying as a type of violence that occurs whenever a student intentionally, repeatedly and over time inflicts or threatens to inflict physical or emotional injury or discomfort on another’s body, feelings or possessions. • Bullying/harassment shall be defined as any type of conduct that may: (1) Reflect a coercive imbalance of power; and (2) is severe, pervasive and often purposeful and repeated; and (3) places an individual in (a) reasonable fear of substantial detrimental effect to his or her person or property; or (b) to otherwise substantially interfere in a student’s academic performance or ability to participate in any school related activity.

4. Examples of bullying • Electronic- (text messages, website, email, Facebook, snapchat, Instagram, etc.) • Physical Aggression -(shoved/pushed, hit, kicked, punched, inappropriately touched) • Social – (excluded, staring/leering, writing/graffiti) • Verbal aggression- (threatened, taunted/ridiculed, told lies or false rumors, mean comments) • Unlawful- (stole/damaged possessions, extortion)

5. Cyberbullying (electronic) **** new mandate • Bullying includes cyber-bullying (bullying through the use of technology or any electronic communication) and means any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act or conduct, including communications made in writing or electronically, directed toward a student or students that has or can be reasonably predicted to have the effect of one or more of the following: • 1. Placing the student or students in reasonable fear of harm to the student’s or students’ person or property; 2. Causing a substantially detrimental effect on the student’s or students’ physical or mental health; 3. Substantially interfering with the student’s or students’ academic performance; or 4. Substantially interfering with the student’s or students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by a school. • The new mandate does not limit cyberbullying to electronic messages only sent “on school property” or “with school equipment”. It includes any cyberbullying that interferes with the 1-4 items listed above.

6. Non-examples of bullying Bullying is purposeful, repeated and over time It is not…. • One time teasing • Conflict between two students • One time fight or disagreement • Expressing differences of opinion • Not playing fair • Not being chosen to work on a class project with a group

7. Terminology • Aggressor (bully)- These children engage in bullying and intimidating behavior towards their peers. • Target (victim)-These children are the targets of bullying behavior. Some factors put children at more risk of being bullied or intimidated, but not all children with these characteristics will be bullied. • Bystander-These children remain outside of the bullying situation but they can either reinforce the bullying behavior (by joining in, laughing or giving attention to the aggressor), or help the situation by defending the child being bullied or help to remove the target from the situation in order to seek help. • Reporter- This could be a student, parent, community member or staff member * • * including but not limited to: principals, teachers, support staff…

8. What Rewards Bullying Behavior? • Most common are: attention from bystanders, attention and reaction of “target”, self-delivered praise, obtaining objects (i.e. money, food, etc.) • Bullying is seldom maintained by feedback from adults. Adult attention will not reward or reinforce this behavior. What reinforces bullying? Bullying is a behavior, not a trait, or a diagnosis, or a person. .

9. What should you do? • Take all reports seriously and don’t ignore. • When you see something, do something- always stop the behavior immediately. • Deal with the students individually- do this in a way that allows the targeted students to maintain dignity and to feel safe from retaliation, be cautious that your intervention does not make the targeted student more of a target. • Hold bystanders accountable; offer guidance by letting them know how they might appropriately intervene or get help next time.

10. What NOT to do… Do NOT dismiss reports-additional information gathering is always necessary. Do NOT assume the behavior is “kids being kids” or “right of passage.” Do NOT use peer mediation (don’t meet with them together). Do NOT make the students involved apologize and/or shake hands on the spot. Do NOT use groups as a format for working with aggressors.

11. We don’t use the word “bully” because… • Using a label sends a message that the child’s behavior doesn’t change from one situation to the next. • Labels suggest that behavior is fixed and is unlikely to improve over time. • Labels can be harmful to kids. • Using labels may suggest that bullying is purely the “fault” of the child and allow us to ignore other factors that contribute to bullying behavior.

12. Step 1

13. Student/Conduct Form • This form can be filled out by a parent, student, community member or a staff member. • This form will provide a shared understanding of what bullying is according to our school district policy. • This form is a filter to help with accurate reporting. • After reviewing this form, it may be determined that the situation is not bullying but another violation of the discipline code of conduct. There may be other discipline or recommendations that will be determined by school staff. • Go on to Bullying/Harassment Incident Reporting Form.

14. Step 2

15. Bullying/Harassment Incident Reporting Form • This form can be filled out by a parent, student, community member or a staff member. • This form will gather the specific information about the allegation of bullying/harassment. • When completed, this form then goes to the administrator. • If this is determined to be a bullying situation, the administrator forwards this on to the point person, who will investigate and create an action plan.

16. Step 3

17. Action Plan

18. School Response to Bullying/Harassment Incident Report • Only Administration/Point Person will complete this form. • This is the school plan to remediate the behavior/situation. • This process should be initiated within 24 hours and completed as timely as possible. • Parent contact of all parties is required. (State mandated) • Administrator will keep all forms.

19. Possible Interventions • Student conference • Student/parent conference • Office Discipline referral • Check in check out • Small group • Mentor • Safety Plan • Loss of privileges • Restitution • Referral to outside counseling agency • Referral to Student Support Team/Problem Solving • Functional Behavior Assessment/Behavior Intervention Plan • Tier 3 interventions

20. Scenarios/Examples & Non-examples of bullying behavior Kids, especially elementary school children, often are very open and honest about their thoughts and feelings. And although it may be uncomfortable to hear what another person thinks, it is not always bullying to share thoughts an feelings. For example, young children often speak the truth without even thinking about the consequences. They might make a one time comment about someone’s hair being messy or ask why a person’s teeth stick out. Or, they might make an uncensored observation like “Wow, your mom is fat.” While these are unkind remarks, they are not a form of bullying. The intention is not to be hurtful, and it is often a one time comment or observation. In these situations, we can work with the offending child to have them think about how that comment might hurt another’s feelings so they would not repeat it.

21. Examples… continued • Although children should be friendly and kind toward everyone, it’s unrealistic to expect them to be close friends with every child they know. It’s also normal that a child won’t be invited to every function or event. There will be times when they are left off the guest list for birthday parties, outings and play dates. This is not the same thing as ostracizing behavior. When your children are the ones feeling left out, remind them that sometimes they too have to choose not include every one. Being left out is not bullying. Only when someone is ostracized or deliberately excluded, does being left out become bullying.

22. Conflict is not bullying • It’s a known fact that kids will bicker and fight. In fact, conflict is a very normal part of growing up. The key is that children learn how to solve their problems peacefully and respectfully. • A fight or a disagreement does not represent bullying – even when unkind things are said. Remember, bullying is about an action towards a specific target, in a repetitive way and involves a lack of power. A spat or disagreement here and there is not bullying.

23. Accident vs. purposeful behaviors • Accidentally bumping into someone is not bullying. When people bump into others, the reaction depends mostly on the bumped person's mood. If they have had a bad day, they think it was an act of aggressive behavior, but if they are in the good mood, they smile back and attract an apology. This is also relevant for playing sport, like when kids throwing the ball at each other hit someone on the head. It is very important for teachers and parents to explain that some accidents happen without any bad intention and it is important not to create a big conflict, because it was NOT an act of bullying.

24. Teasing vs. bullying behavior • Most kids have been teased by a friend or a sibling in a playful, friendly or mutual way. They both laugh and no one’s feelings get hurt. Teasing is not bullying as long as both kids find it funny. But when teasing becomes cruel, unkind and repetitive, it crosses the line into bullying. • Joking and teasing becomes bullying when there is a conscious decision to hurt another person. For example, making demeaning comments, name calling, spreading rumors and making threats all constitute bullying behaviors.

25. It must be a repeated behavior • Isolated acts of harassment, aggressive behavior, intimidation or meanness by itself does not mean it is a bullying behavior. These situations may still lead to an office discipline referral, but not under the label of bullying. • The definition of bullying states that there is repetition in the behavior. Bullying is a conscious, repeated, hostile, aggressive behavior of an individual or a group abusing their position with the intention to harm others or gain real or perceived power. Therefore, anything that happens once is NOT an act of bullying. As a school staff, it is important to pay attention to what kids are telling you and find out if things are happening more than once.

26. Examples of bullying situations • A couple of boys create a false e-mail account using the information of a fellow student. They send e-mails to other male students in the form of fraudulent love letters. They then print the e-mails and display them both on and off the school campus and proceed to verbally tease the student against whom they committed fraud. This type of action can be extremely embarrassing and traumatic for the student who is being bullied. His own friends and classmates may even take to excluding him from activities.

27. Examples of bullying situations • A female large-bodied female student is embarrassed to change into her gym outfit at school because the other girls tease her about being “fat” and call her names. They have even taken pictures of her with their cell phones and sent them to several other schoolmates. Bullying to this degree can be humiliating and psychologically debilitating to a young girl and is often the basis behind disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia.