With new anti-bullying methods in effect this school year, district coordinator Lee McDonald (WW-P News, September 7) has been keeping a record of incidents which will ultimately be submitted to the state board of education. At the school board meeting on January 10, McDonald presented mid-year statistics as well as a review of the policies and school district’s efforts to combat serious bullying situations.
From September through December there were 89 cases of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) investigated in the school district. The numbers shrank every month, with 44 coming in September, 27 in October, 10 in November and 8 in December.
McDonald said the focus for each investigation and in review of the data has been determining “whether particular instances involve a distinguishing characteristic.” This involves looking into the gender, ethnicity and socio-economic backgrounds of both the victims and the aggressors. So far, WW-P has not seen much bullying based on those factors, although among younger students — grades K-5 — all of the 21 reported “bullies” was male.
Among older students the trend changes as in 53 cases investigated throughout middle school grades (sixth through eighth) 15 of the aggressors were female and 38 were male. In WW-P’s two high schools, just 16 cases were reported but more girls than boys were victims.
McDonald and Assistant Superintendent Dr. David Aderhold regularly meet with anti-bullying specialists in each school, although McDonald said that mostly parents and students have been the ones reporting potential bullying incidents.
The use of text messages and online bullying on sites such as Facebook is also being monitored, as McDonald says that pre-teen and teenage students are more likely to engage in non-face to face comments and confrontations.
