Bullying Policy OK’d

As the school board approved a revised bullying policy without laying down firm rules for implementation, two parent advocates pushed for more aggressive reform.

Alberto Nieves (at left in photo) was one of two members of the parent advocacy group Teach Our Children who showed up to discuss the issue at a school board meeting Thursday night. The group has been urging the school system for over a year to tighten its bullying policy: See background stories here and here.

The six board members in the room unanimously approved a policy vowing zero tolerance for bullying in school. However, the guidelines by which the policy will be implemented were not set in stone: a set of procedures for implementation was discussed but not voted on. (View the policy here and the proposed procedures here).

Superintendent Reggie Mayo said not formally approving the guidelines for implementation would make future changes easier.

“It gives us the flexibility from time to time that if something’s not worded well, we can change it without having to bring it back before the board,” he said.

Anonymous Complaints

Nieves argued that the guidelines already needed to be changed.

Nieves, speaking through translator and TOC organizer Camelle Scott (at right in photo above), questioned language in the new bullying investigation procedures. He said they seemed not to require school officials to pursue anonymous bullying complaints, or complaints that were not in writing.

“The current language just requires that administrators investigate reports that are written,” he objected, ​“and it seems to say that anonymous reports won’t be investigated.”

Student complaints of bullying, he argued, should be treated no differently than crime tips received by the police.

“When someone makes an anonymous report to the police, they investigate that and they get the information they need to arrest the person,” he said. ​“So why can’t they do the same here, in the school system?”

Nieves also took issue with a provision in the new regulations stating that parents, guardians and school personnel may file written reports of bullying, which he said suggested that students could not file reports themselves.

Too often, Nieves said, there was little or no communication between parents and teachers due to language barriers, making reliance on parents to file reports problematic, and he said many children were hesitant to discuss bullying with their parents at all.

“A lot of parents don’t have documents, so they already have this fear, and that’s why it’s important that the student makes the report,” he said.

The document should be changed, Nieves said, to allow students to ​“make anonymous reports and have them investigated seriously,” and to require that school administrators ​“investigate and document all reports of bullying,” regardless of whether the complaint is in writing.

Board President Brian Perkins disputed Nieves’ interpretation. He said the guidelines ​“do not preclude students from making a statement.”

Time’s Up

Nieves’ proposed changes met with impatience from Mayor John DeStefano, who said the time for discussion of the policy had already passed.

“We’ve heard from Teach Our Children twice on this concern and at a certain point we have a responsibility to bring closure to the issue,” he said, ​“and so how many times are you going to keep coming back to us on this issue?”

Citing Teach Our Children’s absence from the board’s last meeting March 23, during which the document was first read, Perkins said the group had already been given the opportunity to submit feedback to the bullying committee that wrote the policy, and that any further suggestions should be made in writing.

“As we deem appropriate, we will respond,” Perkins said.

TOC​’s concerns about the new bullying regulations were also sent in a letter April 8 to Mayo and Title IX Coordinator Valerie Hudson-Brown, who did not attend the meeting.

Speaking after the board had adjourned, Torre (pictured, left, with Nieves and Scott) was more conciliatory.

“This is still addressable,” he said.

Without the need for any revisions to the investigation guidelines to be formally amended by the board, he said, anyone, including parents and teachers, were free to offer suggestions on how to improve it. The details of how and when any changes to the document would actually be made, however, remained unclear.

In the meantime, Torre suggested that Scott forward signed copies of the letter sent to Mayo and Hudson-Brown to the rest of the board.

“We hope that [the recommendations] will be taken seriously into consideration,” Scott said, ​“because they are important to parents who have suffered from the issue of bullying.”