By Penni Schaefer
Meadville Tribune
It goes beyond being held up for your lunch money. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, bullying is harassment or intimidation that affects nearly 50 percent of all school children.
One in 10 children surveyed indicated that harassment took place on a regular basis, the academy noted.
To demonstrate the district’s commitment to deal with statistics such as these, Crawford Central School Board members voted Monday to unanimously approve its first anti-bullying, harassment and intimidation policy.
Board members acknowledged that bullying itself is far from a new concept. The difference is that it’s now not being viewed simply as bad behavior.
The policy defines bullying, harassment or intimidation as physical acts such as hair-pulling, shoving, hitting, punching, scratching, throwing objects, kicking, spitting and property damage that “disrupts both a student’s ability to learn and a school’s ability to educate its students in a safe environment.”
It further includes any “written, including cyber bullying, verbal or physical act or gesture that takes place on school property within the school day, at any school-sponsored function, to and from school, or on a school bus.”
One of the points debated among members was the placement of a clause that identifies actual or perceived characteristics motivating the harassment, including race, color, religion, gender and sexual orientation.
“I agree that bullying on those bases needs to be strictly addressed, but I also strongly believe that there is a whole area of bullying that doesn’t necessarily address any character traits,” said School Board President Ross Prather. “We wanted to make sure that the policy is broad enough to encompass all bullying behavior.”
The policy also includes a list of consequences and remedial measures for students who commit an act of bullying, ranging from verbal admonishment from a school official, temporary removal from the classroom, in-school suspension, and legal action to expulsion.
“We have definitely become sensitive to it,” Prather said. “We’re not sitting back and saying ‘kids will be kids’ — we are saying that it is not acceptable behavior.”
For school board member Jan Van Tuil, the newly adopted policy was especially welcomed. “Through the Pennsyl-vania School Board Assoc-iation I have heard many sad tales of bullying and of court cases that have come down,” she said. “I’ve followed the development of this policy and it is a long time coming.”
With the policy approval behind them, Crawford Central will begin informing parents and students of the specifics. According to Superintendent Michael Dolecki, notification will come through mailings, updates to the school handbook and also with a posting to the school district’s Web site.
According to Prather, creating a policy will not be an end-all to the bullying problem, but will change how it’s handled.
“We have a real hope or belief that even if we can’t eradicate bullying, we can substantially diminish it,” he said. “What this policy represents is that Crawford Central has begun to take the incidents more seriously.”
Penni Schaefer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at pschaefer@meadvilletribune.com.
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