Committee Instituted to Investigate Bullying

The district is instituting a new HIB committee to wade through investigations being done concerning reports of harrassment and bullying in all the schools in the district.

According to Superintendent of Schools Michael Schilder, because of the [HIB] have to be reported and investigated to be dealt with accordingly.

"I am in complete support of this law, and think it was one that was needed," he said at the Dec. 20 board of education meeting. "[But] it is very time consuming and very paper intensive, and investigations take time away from the counselors."

"I want to compliment the staff on how these have been conducted, and they have been done in strict accordance with the law and board policy," he added.

At this point, Schilder said, there have been 78 investigations conducted about —but in investigating them in accordance with state law, only 25 have been declared as true HIB incidents.

"The others have been deal with as code of conduct violations," he said.

The biggest problem, Schilder said, and the reason for the new committee, is an ambiguity in the law concerning the reporting of the incidents to the board of education. Based on readings of the law, he said, districts have interpreted it in two different ways.

The first interpretation, Schilder said, is that only confirmed HIB cases are shared with the board of education in summary form. From there, he said, the board only takes action if there is an appeal of the decision as to whether it is a true act of bullying.

The second interpretation, Schilder said, is that all reported HIB cases go before the board for discussion, review and action.

"That creates some logistical problems, and puts the board in a difficult position," he said.

When the policy concerning harassment and bullying was first put into place in September, Schilder said, the board's attorney recommended siding with the first interpretation–currently, counselors in the school investigate reported incidents to determine if they fall under the HIB category, and confirmed cases are reported to the board of education.

But come January, he said, the attorney has recommended switching gears.

"We will start with the second model because our attorney feels it is better to air on the side of caution due to the ambiguity of the law," he said.

"He recognizes the difficulty especially in a large district, the board could end up meeting on a weekly basis," he added.

So, Schilder said, he recommended the board appoint a standing committee, called the HIB Committee, that would be made up of board members and would meet every two weeks on the Thursday prior to the upcoming board of education meeting.

"I would give them a more detailed overview of all the investigations, and if the committee pointed to one and said it was unclear, I would have all the documentation for them," he said.

Then, Schilder said, the committee could make a recommendation to the full board to either accept, modify or reject the recommendations from the district concerning whether the reported incidents are in fact cases of bullying in accordance with state law.

"Our board attorney feels that is the safest method," he said. "He also says it might be a temporary solution because of the ambiguity of the law. But we are having continued conversations and waiting for clear clarification from the Department of Education."

"We are prepared to put this in place beginning in January," he added.

And the report that is viewed by the committee will be given to all board members the Friday before the meeting, Schilder said.

The board agreed to move forward with this plan, and the committee will be made up of board of education president Evan Lerner, vice president Patrick Breslin and members Jeffrey Brookner and Jill Gladstone.

The reports themselves will not be made available to the public because of privacy issues, but the board will approve or deny the recommendation of the committee during public meetings.

As for the reports collected at this point, board member Cindy Cullen said she finds it interesting that there were 78 reported cases, but only 25 actually qualified under the law.

According to Schilder, it was a breakdown of 13 reported at ; 16 at ; six at ; 16 at the and nine at the .

The remaining 18 incidents were distributed at the other elementary schools.

"Very few incidents were actually confirmed at the elementary schools, but once we got to the intermediate and middle schools, that number took a leap up, which is kind of expected," Schilder said. "At the high school, there were only two confirmed incidents."

Schilder said it is difficult to clarify exactly what types of bullying were found in the confirmed cases, but that the law states the harassment has to be about a protected group or distinguishing characteristic.

"They have been for sexual orientation, weight and a few racial statements, although not many of those," he said.

As for strategies to alleviate bullying, Schilder said, the counseling departments have been stepping up school-wide activities, and he is hoping to institute assemblies and continue the discussion on ways to make the problem of bullying known.

"Research has said the DOE is not interested in all harsh punishments, but in seeing measurements to prevent bullying from happening again," he said. "What we are doing in this climate is to show students bullying is wrong and not tolerated."

"That's what we're concentrating on," he added.