Legislation would require districts to report bullying, be audited; By Amy Cherry
Attorney General Beau Biden says that’s something that obviously isn’t happening and the statistics show.
“Last year there were 38 incidents of bullying reported from Lauren to the DOE. William Penn High School, which represents well over 2,000 students, 0 cases of bullying reported,” explains Biden.
Biden goes on to say four districts total reported 0 incidents of bullying, which Lieutenant Governor Matt Denn says “simply isn’t true.”
The legislation also calls for schools to be audited randomly by the state Department of Education to ensure they’re telling the truth.
Hey Beau, let’s put a little meat on your proposed law! Let’s add criminal charges for the school and district administrators who falsify school crime reporting records.
This is what I posted back on January 27, 2012 Is H.B. #243 putting protecting school ratings before student safety? This legislation will allow even more school crime to be swept under the rug.
“The bill simplifies the mandatory report requirements for schools, ensuring that the most serious offenses shall be reported to law enforcement while giving schools discretion to handle minor offenses without mandatory reporting.”
ALL OFFENSES MUST BE REPORTED! Giving school administrator more flexibility to fudge reports is totally insane and dangerous to student and staff safety!
TABLE H.B.#243
Filed under: Uncategorized
Mandatory report is already in school safety laws NOT involing bullying and it has worked GREAT!
This is a VERY complex issue. I am hopeful that Mr. Biden and Lt. Gov Denn will take the time to make certain they cover all of their bases and avoid the number one pitfall of “mandatory ” reporting laws: the unintended consequences of mislabeling crimes in order to escape punishment under the label that is being measured.
You move what you measure. measure bullying and it WILL go down….on paper. Idea to think about, give the school with the MOST bullying the most money as a reward for calling it what it is and hold them to programmatic interventions that HELP THE KIDS!
But then, the unintended consequence is that our schools suddenly look terrible on paper, because of all the stretching to report every single possible occurrence to chase after those elusive dollars..
No offense against your idea, the solution you propose is great. But, what we will get, is instead of schools under-reporting bullying and it still goes on, we will have schools over-reporting bullying and it still goes on…
The same amount of bullying will go on irregardless of the method of reporting…. whether we report over, or under.
And how does one call bullying; I have my own kids and the older ones bully the younger ones, but, it really isn’t that bad… Where do I draw the line? Do I only draw a distinction over the most heinous outbreaks? Or, over every little single word that gets uttered with a tone intended to carry it straight into the little fellow’s heart?
And that’s the problem. Everyone has a different line on the sliding scale that THEY think is the point of excess… None of our lines in the sand, are the same…
Bottom line: best to keep things as they are. If you have a situation, deal with it. If it is too big for you, call law enforcement and record it…
How does that sound?
As our society continues to erode it is obvious the only hope for kids to get to a better school climate is with opportunity scholarships. With these decent kids from decent homes have a chance to reduce their exposure to the bullies.
society starts at home and in the community.
John re: H.B. 243, we’re talking crimes under the criminal codes not chewing gum in class, They should be on the reports ! H.B. 243 fails to describe what are considered “minor offenses” leaving the interpretation up to school leaders! No good
How do you determine if a student is a bully? Three times harassing another student?
society use to start at home.
This may be of interest…presented at the National Quality Education Conference…oops, can’t paste my PDF
Will send upon request. Thanks.
Greg…GFMazzotta@gmail.com
Charter schools were not even listed in the News Journal. I guess there is not any bullying in charter schools? (Just like WIlliam Penn High School!)
Bullying, cell phone use, texting, crazy parents who somehow always have a lawyer, and kids who are superb liars are so common it’s time to pull the plug.
Look for the rise in home schooling to continue and the demand for Opportunity Scholarships to continue.
Today’s building principal’s can’t ‘run’ a building because all day is spent playing catch up from yesterday.