October 2008

AMIGOS – BULLYING GUIDELINES

(NOTE: THIS SCHOOL WIDE BULLY GUIDELINES IS ONLY ONE PIECE OF WHAT ESCUELA AMIGOS SCHOOL IS DOING TO PROMOTE A SAFE AND NURTURING ENVIRONMENT FOR ALL CHILDREN.)

Definition of Bullying:

•Bullying is aggressive, intentional or deliberately hostile behavior, by a student(s) towards another student(s).

•Bullying can take many forms and can occur in any setting.

•Bullying can include, but is not limited to, intimidation, such as name calling or threatening; social alienation such as shunning or spreading rumors; or physical aggression such as assaults on a student or attacks on a student’s property.

- from Cambridge Public Schools Policy

Bullying is unfair and one-sided. It happens when a person or a group of people repeatedly hurts, frightens, teases, threatens or leaves someone else out on purpose.

Bullying is defined as a pattern (3 times or more) of mean behavior, aggression or intimidation against one or more people.

There are four broad categories of bullying:

· Direct physical bullying e.g. hitting, tripping, and pushing or damaging their property.

· Direct verbal bullying e.g. name-calling, insults, homophobic or racist remarks, and verbal abuse.

· Indirect bullying - This form of bullying is harder to recognize and often carried out behind the bullied student’s back. It is designed to harm someone’s social reputation and/or cause humiliation.  Indirect bullying includes:

• Lying and spreading rumors
• Playing nasty jokes to embarrass and humiliate
• Mimicking
• Encouraging others to socially exclude someone
• Damaging someone’s social reputation and social acceptance

• Cyber-bullying – Cyber bullying or (online bullying) is the term used to refer to bullying, harassment and/or humiliation by use of electronic devices though means of e-mail, instant messaging, text messages, blogs, mobile phones, pagers, and websites.

What Bullying is Not:

Many distressing behaviors are not examples of bullying even though such behaviors may be unpleasant and/or inappropriate. Such behaviors, although not bullying, are taken seriously, and often require teacher intervention and management. The following three anti-social situations are often confused with bullying:

Mutual conflict

In mutual conflict situations, there is an argument or disagreement between students but not an imbalance of power. Both parties are upset and usually both want a resolution to the problem. However, unresolved mutual conflict sometimes develops into a bullying situation with one party becoming targeted repeatedly for ‘retaliation’ in a one-sided way.

Social rejection or dislike

Unless the social rejection is directed towards someone specific and involves deliberate and repeated attempts to cause distress, exclude or create dislike by others, it is not bullying.

Single-episode acts of nastiness or meanness, or random acts of aggression or intimidation

Single episodes of nastiness or physical aggression are not the same as bullying. If a student is verbally abused or pushed on one occasion, they are not being bullied.

Nastiness or physical aggression that is directed towards many different students is not the same as bullying. However, since the school has a duty of care to provide a student with a safe and supportive school environment, single episodes of nastiness or physical aggression will be dealt with accordingly.

Goal: To boost measures to diminish bullying and harassment at Escuela Amigos School, and to ensure that incidences of bullying are addressed by the school (e.g., teachers, school counselor, principal, district support personnel, etc.)

1) For teachers:

a) Preventive strategies

i. Introduce bullying issue and consequences at beginning of school year and after each school vacation. It will be made clear that there is a prohibition against bullying as well as a prohibition against retaliation of those who report instances of bullying.

ii. Include bullying issue in the posted rules of the classroom

iii. Teach students how to defend themselves against those that bully

iv. Teach students who witness bullying when and how to intervene

v. Instruct students who are being bullied to talk to a teacher or another adult at school if they are unable to handle by themselves

vi. Make explicit tie-in with social skills curriculum: discovering justice curriculum, responsive classroom, (K – 5) and developmental design, (6 – 8), (e.g., student adjudication process)

b) Procedures for handling issues of bullying **SKIP STEPS AS NECESSARY**

Teachers and staff respond to all incidents of conflict. Every incident is to be taken seriously, and investigated whether or not they are classified as ‘bullying’. Teachers have the skills and training to respond , in –class to most incidences. If a child is sent to the office for having a conflict with another student or with the teacher, a discipline pass is filled out by the teacher and is given to the principal. The child meets with the principal (or assistant principal) and the administration responds to the discipline pass, noting the type of response that is recommended, i.e., conference with child, loss of privilege, filling out of a fix-it plan, (grades 6 – 8), after-school detention with the principal, call to or meeting with parent, initiation of student suspension or expulsion processing (as appropriate), or a combination of the above. Once a pattern of behavior has been developed and/or reported, the teacher/principal team will classify that behavior as ‘bullying’. (see steps below)

TEACHER’S ROLE:

(1) If a teacher witnesses bullying, he/she should address the student immediately, using a “script”.

- Same script to be used school-wide. (ACTION: DEVELOP SCR

(2) If a teacher receives a report of bullying from a child or parent, the teacher will investigate/gather information (See below).

SAMPLE SCRIPT:

Use script. * Adult says - Child B stated that you did xyz. *Child A says – No, I didn’t. He did it first.

* Adult says: I need you to know that doing xyz is considered bullying. Bullying is not allowed in our school. If this happens again…

ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE FOR SCRIPT:

· What you did was bullying and it is against our school rules.

· The bullying must stop immediately.

· According to our policy you will need to...

· Your future behavior will be monitored closely.

· There will be additional consequences if the bullying continues.

(3) 1^st report – warning given to student

(4) 2^nd report – document incident, 2^nd warning

(5) 3^rd incident – document incident, involve administration (principal). Send bully to office.

(6) 4^th incident – document incident, involve administration, send student who is bullying to office, call parents

(7) 5^th incident – document incident, involve administration, send student who is bullying to office, schedule conference with family, review documentation of incidents, review school policy, review school procedures.

2) Helping the child who is bullying (focus on support):

a) Preventive strategies: education

i. School-wide education effort that identifies what bullying is

ii. Ongoing discussion in classroom (tie to Morning Meeting, (K – 5) or Circle of Power (CPR), 6 - 8th grade)

iii. Exploit library tie-in by displaying books about bullying, especially to coincide with “no naming calling” week in January

iv. Initiate peace circles – (school counselor)

b) Procedures for handling issues of bullying: focus on outreach. Resources include:

i. Teachers

ii. Principal and/or assistant principal (with or without parental involvement)

iii. School counselor

iv. Behavioral specialist (district)

v. District experts on bullying and teasing – health coordinator

vi. Out-of-school support

vii. School psychologist

FAMILY ROLE:

3) Family role:

The Amigos school would like to create a community in which bullying is not accepted and all students and adults, (teachers and parents) are familiar with the process and procedures for addressing bullying.

a) Preventive strategies

i. Address explicitly in parent-student-school contract

ii. Increase parental awareness of issue of bullying through school-wide events, workshops, talks; send literature home in backpacks.

b) Procedures for handling issues of bullying: what the family can expect:

c) Call from a school administrator/principal

(1) Conference with principal

(2) Conference with school counselor

(3) Outreach to home via Parent Liaison (this would be ongoing support, not one-time-only)

(4) In-school consequences (loss of choice or privileges, separation of bully in time-out, written apology, fix-it-plan, (6 – 8^th), after school office detention and pick up by parent), extreme cases – change in class assignment)

(5) Suspension – In school (grades 1 – 8) and/or out of school (4^th grade and above)

(6) Involve DSS

(7) Expulsion from school (handled through School/District)

Early morning drop-off or afternoon pick-up are not the best times for a parent(s) to engage with teachers around issues of alleged bullying in the classroom. Once the 8:40 AM bell rings, teachers’ responsibilities are to greet students and parents, direct students to early morning choices, and support students in their transitions in order to prepare for the morning bell, which rings at 8:55. This bell indicates the official beginning of the first morning activity.

(d) If your child/student reports bullying, please follow these steps:

(1) Contact the teacher(s) by phone (leave a voice mail). Teacher will return call to parent within 24 hours. (Teachers are not expected to return parent phone calls during their teaching hours, (8:40 AM – 3:10 PM) unless there is an emergency. (Teacher(s) will then need turn-around time to follow through with the student or students, (one who is bullying, the victim and the bystanders,) to investigate allegations, document evidence and make a report to the administration and parent). During this process, the student (students) that is doing the alleged bullying will be monitored. Measures will be taken by the teacher/administration, such as separation of students at recess and during unstructured times of the day from those students with whom they are having conflict to ensure the child’s/children’s safety.

(2) Send teacher(s) an e-mail or note. Make specific reference to the concern and be as specific as possible. Do not send the e-mail to the principal or other school personnel until you have notified the teacher(s). Again, teacher(s) will need the same consideration with regard to a timeframe as specified in (d) (1). Teacher(s) will respond to the e-mail within 24 hrs.

(3) Set up an appointment to meet with the teacher. Parent or teacher may request that the principal attend. (See administration below – parent is called and meeting is scheduled after 4^th incident).

(4) Bring the matter to the attention of the principal or the assistant

Principal of the school

(5) Set up a meeting with the Principal.

The school does not recommend that parents or family members of the alleged victim personally make contact with the alleged bully or make contact with the parent(s) of the student who has been identified as “the one that bullied”.

Reporting Complaints of Bullying

If any student or parent/guardian of a student believes that the student has been

subjected to bullying, he or she should bring the matter to the attention of the assistant principal, small learning community administrator or principal of the school where the child attends. This may be done verbally or in writing.

If the student or parent/guardian of a student is unable to resolve the concern by

working in cooperation with the student’s teacher and the assistant principal or small learning community administrator and principal of the school and/or other school staff deemed appropriate by the school principal, the student or parent/guardian may file a written complaint with the Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning. The Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning will investigate the allegation in accordance with the provisions set forth below in Section IV. –

from CPSD Bullying and Teasing Policy

ROLE OF ADMINISTRATION:

4) Administration (school policy and procedures):

a) Preventive strategies

i. Include bullying in school mission (display prominently on school website)

ii. Include bullying in school-home contract

iii. Deepen culture of “no bullying” at all levels of school (at cluster and meetings)

iv. Organize ongoing, yearlong, school-wide education efforts (workshops, talks, coffees, literature, etc.)

v. Train teachers to use same scripts

vi. Track progress of other schools in how they address bullying

b) Procedure for handling issues of bullying

(1) Determine seriousness of incident; call family after 4^th incident (see teacher procedures)

(2) Schedule conference with family, review documentation of incident, review school district policy, policy on anti-bullying, school-based rules on anti-bullying, review school procedures, agree with family on what steps the family take to address incident in conjunction with the school, document response of family

(3) Schedule conference with school counselor, identify and address mitigating factors in bully’s family, review school policy and school procedure (2^nd time), agree with family on next steps (incl. consequences for next incident, warning of suspension-4^th grade and above), document response of family, write up highlights of meeting and include with other documentation

(4) Involve Parent Liaison for out-reach to home; this is ongoing support, not one-time-only visit(s)

(5) Suspend student (4^th grade and above)

(6) Involve DSS

(7) Expulsion from school (handled through District)

5.Students – targets and bystanders

i. Intervention strategies

ii. Procedures for reporting issues of bullying