By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Although the final results won’t be tallied for another week or so, it appears the number of incidents of harassment, intimidation or bullying is on the decline in the Lawrence Township public school district, according to Superintendent of Schools Crystal Lovell.
Dr. Lovell outlined the 2011-12 annual Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) Report before the Lawrence Township Board of Education at its June 11 meeting. State law requires school districts to report the number of incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying twice a year.
There have been 53 confirmed instances of HIB, of which 23 have occurred since January, Dr. Lovell said. This compares to 30 confirmed cases in the first three months of the school year. The state’s new anti-bullying law took effect in September.
Of the 53 confirmed incidents, three involved race, five involved gender, four were about sexual orientation, nine involved mental, physical or sensory disabilities, and 34 were “other distinguishing characteristics.”
That could mean anything from the fact that a child wears eyeglasses, a child’s height or that the child wore the same jacket all winter, Dr. Lovell said. It’s very often about someone who said something about somebody else, she said.
The majority of exchanges were verbal, according to the report. There were some physical interactions, and a few written comments. A handful of HIB incidents involved the use of electronic media.
The number of alleged incidents of HIB which must be reported to school officials and then investigated also has been declining as students, staff and faculty became more familiar with the new law, Dr. Lovell said. There were 153 investigations launched as a result of allegations of harassment, intimidation or bullying the majority of them occurring in the first three months after the law’s implementation.
Dr. Lovell said she was surprised initially at the number of reports and incidents that took place in September, but she is not surprised the numbers have gone down. She attributed the decline to a better understanding of the law, as well as the character education programs and anti-bullying programs in place in the district.
”For most of our population, the children ‘get it.’” Dr. Lovell said.
And for those children who were involved in HIB incidents, the majority received individual or group counseling, she said. Sometimes parents were involved in a conference, and at other times the discipline consisted of suspending a student’s privileges.
There were a few suspensions either in-school or out-of-school. The suspensions were most often the result of repetitive behavior, she said. The incident has to be “significant” for a student to be suspended from school, she added.
In-school counseling seeks to get to the root of what is causing the behavior, Dr. Lovell said. Both the victim and the offender may receive counseling so the victim will feel safe in school. Sometimes, the issue is rooted in the fact that the victim and the offender might live near each other and the incidents occur off school grounds.
Many of the incidents occur when classes are changing and students pass each other in the hallway, she said. Comments may be made on the school bus, but there are few comments made in the lunchroom, she added.
”We don’t have a huge problem, but that is not to say we don’t have areas that we need to address,” Dr. Lovell said.
