Noble goal. But a lot of paperwork and tight deadlines. Three months into the school year, school administrators are grappling with the demands of the state’s new anti-bullying law, signed by Gov. Chris Christie in January. “It’s a process and it’s a rather involved process,” said Simon Bosco, Old Bridge superintendent of schools. “It’s extraordinarily time consuming on multiple levels.”
The law requires that schools conduct comprehensive investigations of all claims of harassment, intimidation and bullying that occur on school grounds, buses, bus stops and also over electronic media when it flows over to and affects the well-being of the schools. Schools also face strict reporting deadlines during these investigations: Incidents must be reported the same day that they occur and a report must be filed to the school principal within two days.
Principals then must notify the parents of the students involved within one day, and an anti-bullying specialist will then complete a full investigation within 10 days.
The superintendent must report the findings of the investigation at the next Board of Education meeting and recommend action; the board can approve, modify or deny the recommendations. The findings are shared with parents of students involved, who may request a hearing before the school board.
“There are very, very, very protracted, tight timelines,” Bosco, whose district has investigated 111 cases, a “handful” of which were cases of bullying. “No matter what’s going on, you have got to get this thing done on a given timeline.” Paperwork, too, is proving to be a challenge, said Louis Figueroa, assistant superintendent of student activities and services for the East Brunswick school district.
Working more than 100 investigations, about one-third of which have been confirmed cases of bullying, Figueroa said the level of paperwork is a burden for many in the district.
“The paperwork is very challenging because now the schools that are investigating have certain documents that need to be filled out and duplicated and sent out and checked and rechecked,” he said. “Those things, of course, without additional staff puts a burden at the building level and the executive office level.”
Spotswood District Anti-Bullying Coordinator Maureen McVeigh Berzok said that the paperwork involved in reporting is “horrendous,” noting that one problem is that the state does not offer standardized forms to use.
“All districts are creating this from scratch,” she said. “The paperwork should be [standardized] so that we all have the same type of standing.”
Yet unlike the implementation of zero-tolerance laws, where news headlines told of kindergartners suspended for making a gun with their fingers and a young student suspended for bringing a plastic butter knife onto school grounds, the anti-bullying law has not come with these difficulties, the administrators said.
“The administrative reaction to this has been very appropriate and very well measured,” Bosco said. “It’s all age appropriate and condition appropriate.”
East Brunswick’s Figueroa said that discipline is progressive, with first offenses perhaps resulting in counseling and repeat offenses treated with different levels of severity. Incidents involving kindergartners, Figueroa said, also will prompt different punishments than incidents involving high school students. Yet all, he noted, must be investigated.
Reporting under the new law is also occurring as intended, Bosco said, with parents, teachers, students and anonymous complaints all coming forth with incidents.
Figueroa said he has also been pleased with student bystanders and witnesses coming forward in his district to report incidents and even stepping in to intervene when bullying occurs.
Spotswood’s McVeigh-Berzok said that there was some overly cautious reporting early on in the year, with district employees worried about compliance and the safety of children.
But McVeigh-Berzok, whose district has had eight incidents with four confirmed as bullying, said that in many cases throughout history, overreaction is the pathway to change.
“Sometimes you have to overreact in the beginning so that the thing becomes so unacceptable that it’s not done,” she said. “That’s really been the pattern of how things get eliminated, how a problem is addressed.”
And despite some of the burdens and challenges, Figueroa said he is a supporter of the law and its intent to eliminate bullying in schools.
“We do feel that these are positive measures, and that will hopefully help kids,” he said. “We’d love to be able to eventually say that there will be no bullying anywhere, but only time will tell.”
Contact Chris Zawistowski at [email protected].