The 12th District legislators reacted positively to the news that Gov. Chris Christie had signed into law on Jan. 6 the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, designed to better prepare schools to deal with the act of bullying and its consequences.
Sen. Jennifer Beck and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (both RMonmouth and Mercer) were co-sponsors of the legislation in their respective Houses, according to a press release.
“Schools, unfortunately, are having to deal with the reality of bullying taking place within their walls,” said Beck, “and this law provides the tools with which they can confront the issue. Cyber-bullying has become a particularly prominent issue that all schools, students, parents and prosecutor’s offices are learning to handle.
“This law provides teachers and administrators with training and protects victims and witnesses of all types of bullying from reprisal. This law is simply about protecting all of our children and making sure that our schools are safe and secure places of learning for the children of our state,” Beck said.
“It is a regrettable reality that bullying does take place in our schools,” said Casagrande. “The bill that Gov. Christie has signed into law solidifies New Jersey’s commitment to face this national issue head on. We are creating a system of real accountability for our teachers, administrators and students alike, in the hopes that our students will not meet the tragic ends that we have seen all too often across the country in recent years.”
The law, among other things, does the following:
modifies the definition of harassment, intimidation, and bullying;
requires schools to implement, document, and assess bullying prevention programs or approaches;
stipulates that a school principal appoint a school staff member to serve as the school’s anti-bullying specialist and to form a school safety team that includes the principal (or the principal’s designee), a teacher, the anti-bullying specialist, a parent, and anyone else chosen by the principal;
requires that the school district superintendent appoint, preferably from among current personnel, an anti-bullying coordinator; establishes harassment, intimidation, and bullying training requirements for teachers, as part of their two-hour training requirement in suicide prevention, new school board members, school leaders, safe schools resource officers and public school liaisons to law enforcement, and individuals seeking certification in instruction or administration;
requires that the Department of Education develop guidance documents explaining how complaints regarding harassment, intimidation, and bullying are to be resolved, establish in-service workshops to train anti-bullying specialists and coordinators, and create an Internet-based tutorial on harassment, intimidation, and bullying;
directs the Commissioner of Education to establish a formal protocol for the executive county superintendents of schools to address complaints of harassment, intimidation, and bullying incidents not being adequately addressed by schools and districts;
requires public institutions of higher education to adopt a policy in the code of student conduct prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying.