Students, parents, school employees, and administrators are being introduced to a new acronym this year: HIB, short for the decades-old problem of harassment, intimidation, and bullying.
The issue came under close scrutiny after last September’s suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi and his now-public exchanges with former roommate Dharun Ravi, a 2010 High School North alumnus. On January 5 Governor Christie signed a new law, the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which takes effect as the school year begins.
In compliance with the law, each school in the West Windsor-Plainsboro district now has a designated anti-bullying or H.I.B. specialist to investigate complaints and be a community liasion. Each district is also required to have an anti-bullying coordinator, appointed by the superintendent. For WW-P that person is Lee McDonald.
The job of an anti-bullying coordinator includes collaborating with each specialist, the superintendent, and the board of education; providing data to the Department of Education, and meeting at least twice a year with all school anti-bullying specialists. McDonald has met with all nine specialists, who he said were already working as counselors within the school district. He believes that gives the specialists the added advantage of being accustomed to their surroundings.
“The anti-bullying specialist role will be added to their full-time responsibilities as counselors. They will be uniquely capable of understanding conflicts, having the polished background and experiences helping students, which will really help in that role,” he says.
In addition to the specialists “school safety teams” will be formed to develop, foster, and maintain a positive climate in each WW-P school. Teams will consist of the school’s principal or another administrator and people they appoint: a teacher, a parent of a child in the specific school, and others. The school’s anti-bullying specialist will chair meetings, which will occur at least twice in a school year.
While specialists will be available for students and parents to turn to at any time, incidents can be reported using a form, the “anonymous HIB report,” which includes a section on possible motivational factors for bullying, including race, religion, color, ancestry, and gender identity and expression. The form asks respondents to indicate how they learned of an incident or repeated incidents, with checkboxes for witnessing, information provided by a victim, or information from a third party.
Once and incident is reported the information will be submitted to the school’s principal, who will determine of it meets the definition of HIB. If it does the principal will initiate an investigation within one school day of the incident and other procedures will follow. Within 10 days a report has to be completed and submitted to the superintendent, and a summary of the incident has to be presented to the board of education. Ultimately McDonald will need to report the incident to the state.
A native of McLean, Virginia, McDonald holds a master’s degree in educational psychology as well as an undergraduate degree in journalism and history, both from Rutgers. His mother was a music teacher who also ran an antiques business while his father was an attorney. McDonald says that although he can’t recall any firsthand accounts of bullying being part of his childhood, most people encounter situations of bullying whether they take place in a playground or a school setting among children or in the professional world where someone exudes control and there is an imbalance or power. He’s seen some bullying in athletics as well.
“I’ve played team sports all my life and seen hazing and incidents like that where it’s about pressure and harassment,” he said.
The school district is going to spread information on bullying to parents and students through various platforms. On its website, ww-p.org, the quick links section has “anti-bullying info” at the top. Presentations will probably be made at back-to-school nights. McDonald said PTA meetings may be another place this information will be shared.
“Depending on the audience and the grade level there can be different approaches to disseminating information,” he says.
According to McDonald the school district’s first course of action was setting forth clear definitions of bullying in all of its various forms: physical, verbal, indirect, and cyber. Indirect bullying can take the form of spreading rumors, getting people to gang up on others or an individual, and keeping a certain person or people out of a group.
Locations of bullying incidents can be on school property, at school-sponsored functions, on a school bus, and off school grounds, including cyberspace. In the age of Twitter, Facebook, and countless other sites as well as cellular communications, cyberspace bullying can be most readily defined as insulting or degrading comments, McDonald said.
“Every teacher, lunch aide, and bus driver will receive training to inform them of what the law requires, what to look out for, and beliefs that could ensure bullying is not taking place. Within the first couple of weeks of school every student is going to have a presentation, which will also be available online,” he said.
McDonald’s office has compiled separate presentations for faculty, parents, and students. For faculty McDonald said one of the district’s aims is making sure the right attitudes and messages about bullying are conveyed to students. He cited statistical data that suggests students feel as though teachers don’t do enough, and meanwhile 70 percent of teachers say that they are always intervening when bullying occurs. Although it may not be true for West Windsor-Plainsboro, he says in some instances teachers can feel a sense of complacency and disregard bullying issues.
“The teacher might project to the students that it can happen anywhere but just not in my classroom, or I can’t do anything because I don’t know what to do about it — ‘that’s not my job.’ We will be letting faculty know these kinds of beliefs maintain bullying rather than prevent it,” McDonald said.
He noted that teachers can influence students if, for example, they have an open-door policy about discussing issues.
“From our standpoint we’re being proactive and responsible in terms of educating parents, students, and the community in general. I think, from an awareness standpoint, people knowing that this is something that goes on every day, statewide, would be a primary goal,” McDonald said.
McDonald can be reached at 609-716-5000, ext. 5122. The anti-bullying specialists at the individual schools and their extensions include the following:
Dutch Neck Elementary School, Nancy Dunne, ext. 5423.
Maurice Hawk Elementary School, Karen Cook, ext. 5427.
Town Center Elementary, Joyce Trotman, ext. 6508.
Wicoff Elementary, Ellen Incollingo, ext. 5457.
Millstone River, Lisa Valeriani, ext. 5521.
Village School, Melissa Greiner, ext. 6214.
Community Middle School, and Grover Middle School, Wendy Alley, ext. 5175.
High School North, Jenna Cavadas, ext. 5115
High School South, Rebecca Bartuska, ext. 7316.
