bullying

Delaware Regulations

Last year the Delaware legislature amended its harassment law. It now states:
“A person is guilty of harassment when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person he or she insults, taunts or challenges another person or engages in any other course of alarming or distressing conduct which serves no legitimate purpose and is in a manner which the person knows is likely to provoke a violent or disorderly response or cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress.”
In addition, according to the Attorney General’s office, bullying actions can sometimes involve other crimes, most typically assault or extortion.
The Delaware Department of Education requires that schools report bullying incidents. It defines bullying as “when one person or a group of persons targets another person with repeated direct or indirect negative actions over a period of time which are harmful to the victim either emotionally or physically. A negative action occurs when a person knowingly inflicts, or attempts to inflict, physical or emotional injury or discomfort upon another person.”

Internet Bullying Can Be a Crime

Internet bullying is a relatively new problem, says Delaware Deputy Attorney General Rhonda Denny.
Through e-mail and instant messaging, kids can spread rumors, issue threats and reveal secrets with the click of a button. Since e-mails are capable of reaching so many people simultaneously, rumors and hurtful gossip can rapidly spread through an entire school.
“Kids are often less careful about what they say online,” says Denny, noting that messages often remain, hidden on a computer’s hard drive where they can later be retrieved by a parent — or a law enforcement agent.
Since Internet bullying typically happens at home, it’s a parent responsibility, not the school’s, to monitor children’s computer use, advises Denny.
Parents need to let their children know that the things they put in writing can rise to the level of a crime, she says, especially if it involves what could be interpreted as a terrorist threat. Parents should warn their children of the
consequences of their actions on the computer.

DE Anti-Bullying Campaigns

Since 1998, the Attorney General’s office has presented school bullying prevention assemblies. They include skits by students that portray actual bullying incidences in Delaware.
This year Delaware received a grant from the Criminal Justice Council to launch its School Bully Proofing Project, a pilot program in Wilmington schools. In this program, high school students perform a skit that demonstrates a bullying problem for a small group of elementary school students. The elementary school students are then asked to come up with solutions to the problem.
Finally, they perform their own skits that show their solutions. This approach is based on the Olweus Program. This year, Newark Charter School became the first school in Delaware to hire an Olweus-trained advisor.
The Attorney General’s office is encouraging all Delaware schools to use the Olweus approach. “If they do not, they run the risk of failing to achieve research-proven results,” says Deputy Attorney General Rhonda Denny.
For more info about the Attorney General’s bullying prevention programs, campaigns and regulations, contact www.state.de.us/attgen and click on “For the Teachers.” To report a bullying incident, call the School Crime Hotline at
800-220-5414.

Anti-Bullying Campaigns
Raise Awareness

by June Portnoy

Not long ago adults accepted bullying as part of a child’s natural development. Remember statements such as “boys will be boys,” “girls can be cruel” and “they’ll outgrow it”?
But since the 1999 Columbine tragedy, parents, schools and legislatures have become actively involved in bullying prevention campaigns.
“The shootings at Columbine put the seriousness of bullying on the map,” says Hester Agudosi, chief of office of Bias Crime and Community Relations in New Jersey. “Since then, there has been a grass roots movement as parents and victims have come to the forefront to see how the problems of bullying can be addressed.”
“After the Columbine incident, a secret service study found that in two-thirds of U.S. school shootings, bullying played a major role,” says Rhonda Denny, a Delaware deputy attorney general. “As a result, more states have finally realized that they cannot ignore the issue of bullying.” You can view the study at www.treas.gov/usss/ntac/
ssi_final_report.pdf

The ‘Founding Father’
Since 1970, psychologist Dan Olweus, PhD (pronounced Ol-VEY-us) has led research and created intervention techniques to reduce bullying among kids.
After three adolescent boys in northern Norway committed suicide in 1983, probably as a consequence of severe bullying by peers, the Norwegian Ministry of Education commissioned Dr. Olweus to conduct a research and intervention project on bully/victim problems. The result was the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, which has since been refined, expanded, and evaluated with positive results.
“Until Professor Olweus started his research, no bullying prevention existed,” says Stuart Green, founder and director of the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying Awareness and Prevention. “Nobody realized this was a problem we could address and resolve.”
Olweus is now based at the University of Bergen, Norway’s Research Centre for Health Promotion. His book Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do (Blackwell Publishers, $22.95) is regarded as the definitive text on school bullying/victim problems and on effective ways of counteracting and preventing such problems.
The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program has been implemented by school districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. “It is one of the only research-based anti-bullying programs that exist,” says Elizabeth Landis, a certified Olweus trainer.

How the Program Works
Initially, Olweus trainers meet with school administrators. They must commit time and resources to the program. If there is a commitment, 12 to 15 teachers, school staff members, parents and students receive training.
Next, students fill out anonymous surveys asking questions that can determine the level of bullying and victimization at the school, the type of bullying that takes place and bullying hot spots.
The classroom meeting is the heart of the Olweus program. Classes are asked to allot 30 minutes for non-academic time each week. During these sessions, teachers lead discussions on topics such as bullying, safety, relationships and even favorite television shows.
“The idea is to create a space where kids feel safe to communicate important issues with each other and with a trusting adult,” says Landis. “It also gives students the chance to know each other in a different setting. We recommend that these meetings take place indefinitely.”
In addition, the school develops and posts anti-bullying rules and creates a coordinated system of supervision during break periods, says Landis. Rules include appropriate positive and negative consequences for students’ behavior. Schools hold staff discussions related to the anti-bullying program. Parent involvement is sought.
When bullying incidents are identified, officials intervene with both the bully and the victim, along with their parents. Although bullies and victims typically comprise 10 to 15 percent of a school’s students, some 80 percent of students are bystanders at bullying incidents, according to Olweus figures.
The Olweus program strives to empower these bystanders by teaching them to tell an adult if they see bullying or to approach a victim who is being shunned. When peers take away a bully’s power, the bully is more likely to stop.
Follow-up studies in Norway showed the Olweus Program successfully reduced bully/victim problems by 50 percent. In 1993, D. Olweus concluded, “It is no longer possible to avoid taking action about bullying problems at school using lack of knowledge as an excuse. A great deal can be accomplished with relatively simple means.”

Ineffective Approaches
“There has been a tremendous backlash against some of the anti-bullying policies, particularly the zero tolerance policy,” says Jenkintown, PA resident

Jonathan Maberry, creator of Fear No One: Practical Solutions to Bullying, a video with a book version due out in 2006.
Zero-tolerance policies require the suspension of students involved in fighting, regardless of the circumstances. According to Maberry, this policy takes away children’s due process, which should include asking participants in an altercation what actually happened. As a result,

victims of bullying are often punished.
According to New Jersey’s Stuart Green, another anti-bullying approach that can be counterproductive is the installation of detectors, monitors and guards at schools.
This program treats bullies like criminals, even though in many cases, they are educated, popular kids who have gotten the wrong message that bullying is a successful way to behave. In addition, kids who are not bullies are subjected to this surveillance.

‘It Will Take Time’
“We still have a long way to go to reduce the amount of bullying taking place in schools,” says Delaware’s Rhonda Denny. She says many adults still believe that bullying is just a part of growing up in spite of the evidence of bullying’s long-lasting negative effects and research that shows how relatively simple means can prevent bullying.
“It will take time to shift the thinking that has been acceptable in our culture, which suggests bullying is normal behavior for kids,” says Mary Dolan, Pennsylvania coordinator for The Center for Safe Schools. “But the wave of anti-bullying prevention has moved in. As people see that learning can’t take place in environments perceived as unsafe, they will better understand the need for anti-bullying programs.”
“There is still an inadequate amount of attention to the topic of bullying in the curriculum and inadequate support from kids and adults,” says Green. “We are still not close to having this issue handled in the U.S.”
However, according to Green, changes are clearly taking place, partly due to the growing number of lawsuits against schools by parents of bullied children. In addition, organized anti-bullying campaigns are playing a significant role of communicating to parents that society can change this problem. “The greater the awareness, the more effects we will see,” says Green.

June Portnoy is a contributing writer to MetroKids.