FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — New Jersey’s newAnti-Bullying Bill of Rights law is already having an effect in at least one local school district.
During public meetings of the school board, administrators must make note of incidents of bullying, harassment and intimidation that have been reported to school officials, according to the new law.
The law applies to face-to-face bullying of the type that might occur on a school bus or in a school building, as well as to bullying that may occur through text messages, email and on Internet social networks when students are off school property.
At the Sept. 13 meeting of the Freehold Township K-8 School District Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Ross Kasun said five reports of alleged bullying, harassment or intimidation were investigated during the first week of school.
Kasun said three reports were confirmed and two reports were unfounded. He did not provide any information about the nature of the confirmed or unfounded reports, where they occurred or were reported to have occurred, or the ages of the pupils involved.
In response to a request from the News Transcript for additional information, the superintendent said he could not share the discipline that was meted out in the three confirmed incidents, but he said those incidents did not result in student suspensions.
Kasun said the parents of students who are involved in a reported incident of bullying, harassment or intimidation will be notified before any investigation of a reported incident takes place.
“This is the new mandate. Parents first, investigation second,” Kasun said, adding that a reportable incident can be a single act of name calling or something more extreme.
Under the new state law, each school district must name an anti-bullying coordinator and a school must have an anti-bullying specialist.
Assistant Superintendent Neal Dickstein has been appointed as Freehold Township’s anti-bullying coordinator.
Kasun said working with the new law is a learning process.
Among other things, the law does the following: modifies the definition of harassment, intimidation and bullying; requires schools to implement, document and assess bullying prevention programs or approaches; establishes harassment, intimidation and bullying training requirements for teachers; and directs the New Jersey commissioner of education to establish a formal protocol for the executive county superintendent of schools to address complaints of harassment, intimidation and bullying that are not being adequately addressed by schools and districts.