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Bullying Prevention
This year, a significant emphasis has been placed on work to prevent bullying in our schools. This summer, our five building principals helped devise plans to review practices, enhance awareness, and provide ongoing support to students, staff, and parents in newly imagined ways. To date, principals shared with me that the number of bullying reports in our schools has decreased compared to last year.
After the concern about bullying was brought to our attention last spring by a group of parents, our principals have embraced this work wholeheartedly. Please allow me to highlight some of the building-based activities implemented this year.
Crosby:
Character Education Lessons: Students engage in lessons emphasizing empathy and respect, highlighting the negative impacts of bullying on individuals and the school community.
Identification of Bullying Types: Students learn to recognize three types of bullying: physical (hitting, pushing), verbal (name-calling, insults), social (excluding, talking behind others backs), and cyberbullying (aggression through digital platforms).
Scenario Practice: Through role-playing, students practice identifying and responding to various bullying scenarios, fostering discussions about feelings and appropriate actions. The students created PSA posters on the different types of bullying in English and Spanish.
Skills Development: Students acquire practical strategies to address bullying, such as reporting incidents to adults, supporting peers, and knowing when to walk away.
Parent Engagement: Schools send newsletters to parents with guidance on supporting their children, recognizing signs of bullying, and effective intervention strategies.
Unity Day and Bullying Prevention Month: We celebrated Unity Day and Bullying Prevention Month in October, promoting awareness and encouraging students to stand together against bullying.
Jefferson:
Every student received lessons from our social workers in their classrooms regarding what bullying is and is not. Students are also learning how to respond in a situation where someone is treating them or someone else in a poor manner. That includes actions to make sure that the behaviors stop and that a trusted adult is notified so they can help.
When alleged bullying occurred, there was a reteaching of expectations for all parties involved, including repair of harm to affected students.
The Jefferson newsletter has shared regular installments regarding bullying for families, providing education on the topic, signs to look for, and how to respond.
Junior High:
The Junior High school has focused on activities in advisory/HIVE for students and staff, focusing on relational capacity and how to create positive vs. negative connections.
There has also been communication with parents via weekly newsletters regarding Advisory/HIVE programming and lessons occurring at the Junior High School.
Last year, an anti-bullying presentation was held for all Harvard Junior High students.
High School:
Harvard High School has units covering this in both the Health classes and Strategies for Success. Officer Kohn presents nine different courses on cyberbullying (and internet safety) and the use of social media.
We make sure that a reteaching or a self-study program is part of the consequence for any student who has an incident that is related to making fun of another student or staff member so they understand how their words or actions affect others—for example, researching the long-term effects of using derogatory terms based on race, gender, disabilities, or sexual orientation.
While we continue to focus at the building level on where bullying most commonly happens and shore up our internal practices, we’re planning for an exciting event this spring. We’ll host a Parent University event on March 15 at Harvard Junior High. At the event, we’ll have speakers focusing on bullying-related issues and how parents can support their children and our schools. Other parenting topics will also be covered at this event.
We want every child to return home each night safely, a little more intelligent, and with all the dignity and respect they had when they left for school that day, or a little more! We’ll continue working with teachers, staff, and students on this issue.