Laying down the law on bullying and cyberbullying

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it’s a great time to promote anti-bullying activities. Although it’s well known that bullying is a widespread problem that can have serious implications on students’ academic and non-academic well-being, the anti-bullying and cyberbullying legislative mandates districts must follow are complex and can be hard to navigate. To get a better grip on a district’s bullying prevention responsibilities, eSchool News spoke with Tina Hegner, manager of research and development at PublicSchoolWORKS. In her role, Hegner researches and interprets state and federal legislation to help districts meet existing and new requirements.

Q: Who is responsible for making bullying legislation—the federal government or individual states?

A: There is not a federal law that specifically addresses bullying. However, if a bullying or cyberbullying incident concerns a student’s race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion, it may overlap with discriminatory harassment and federal civil rights laws such as Title II, Title VI, Title IX, or Section 504. In these cases, federally funded districts—so pretty much every public school district in the country—are legally obligated to address the incident.…Read More

Anti-bullying legislation attacked for allowing bullying

Anti-bullying legislation just approved by the Michigan Senate has been denounced by the father of the teenager for whom it was named because, he said, it actually allows bullying to continue, the Washington Post reports. The legislation, called “Matt’s Safe School Law,” was named after Matt Epling, an honor-roll student who killed himself at the age of 14 in 2002 after being assaulted by bullies at his school. The draft law, which passed the state Senate with 26 Republican votes against 11 Democratic votes and now advances to the lower house, includes language inserted before the vote that says the bill “does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held belief or moral conviction” of a student or school worker…

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Anti-bullying law could face free-speech challenges

When Gov. Deval Patrick signed Massachusetts’ first anti-bullying law May 3, supporters heralded it as the most far-reaching effort yet by a state to deter behavior that has driven youngsters to suicide. But a number of civil-rights lawyers say the new law might go too far and will almost certainly lead to legal challenges, reports the Boston Globe. Fueled in large part by soaring recent complaints about “cyber bullying,’’ some 44 states, including Massachusetts, now have laws that prohibit bullying of students in school and online. But federal lawsuits also have increased, because parents of students who have been disciplined are fighting back. Massachusetts state Rep. Martha Walz, the primary sponsor of that state’s anti-bullying bill, said she took pains to draft a bill that would address bullying while preserving the free-speech rights of students. For one thing, she said, Massachusetts now requires that every student from kindergarten through 12th grade participate in an anti-bullying curriculum every year. Moreover, laws in other states specifically ban bullying that targets individuals based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or other traits. The Massachusetts law deliberately eschewed that, Walz said, because bullies elsewhere have avoided discipline by claiming they never intended to target a member of a certain group. “We look at the bully’s actions, rather than the bully’s intent,’’ she said. But some aspects of the law are so general that civil-rights lawyers are concerned about how schools will apply it…

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