Seymore releases piece on bullying concerns in district

To accompany the bullying story on the front page, Breckenridge ISD Superintendent Tim Seymore has requested this column be published as a way to help bridge the information gap that may exist between the district and parents.

Any opinions expressed by Seymore in the following piece are his and his alone. The Breckenridge American has agreed to publish it as a supplemental piece to the bullying story.

Contributed by Tim Seymore

Breckenridge ISD Superintendent

If you are doing it, stop. If you are receiving it, tell the bully to stop. Of course, that is way oversimplified, and a little altruistic.

From the school (and legal) perspective bullying has a specific definition. Bullying is behavior deriving from one student (or students) to another that exploits an imbalance of power. A bully must have a position of power over the victim, that power can be physical, emotional, or even social. Bullying has the effect or will have the effect of physically harming a student, damaging a student's property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm to the student's person or of damage to the student's property. It is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive enough that the action or threat creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for a student. It materially and substantially disrupts the educational process or the orderly operation of a classroom or school. It infringes on the rights of the victim at school. These descriptors of bullying are found in the Texas Education Code and School Board Policy.

Having a legal definition of bullying is helpful, at times, and can get in the way, at times. School administrators must be careful not to label something as bullying that does not fit this definition, as identifying a student as a bully, wrongly, can have adverse effects, as well. No one wants their child bullied, but no one wants their child labeled as a bully, either. For this reason, some behaviors that are clearly not appropriate are still not labeled as bullying.

At BISD, when a student, parent, or staff member makes a complaint of bullying, a course of action is put into place which includes an investigation, a determination (if possible) of the facts, a determination as to whether or not the action is classified as bullying, discipline is applied (for verifiable violations of the Code of Conduct), a plan to prevent future events is put into place, and parents of both the bully and victim (if the victim’s parents did not make the complaint) are notified.

Often times, even when the administrator does not determine that the behavior meets the legal definition of bullying, there is still some finding of inappropriate behavior and discipline is applied, and often a plan for prevention of future events is still put in place. A few perceptual problems arise, at times, when this happens. First, the parent of a child that reports bullying is often upset that the administrator tells them it was not bullying. From the administration standpoint, discipline should be applied whether or not the behavior is determined to be bullying, if it violates the Code of Conduct. Additionally, sometimes, a report is made by a parent or student about inappropriate behavior and the investigation reveals that both the student claiming to have been bullied and the alleged bully have been behaving inappropriately toward each other for some time. When it is warranted, both students may receive discipline. This may upset complainant even more, but it is the correct course of action. Please be aware that administrators cannot disclose the discipline actions they place on students other than their own. They cannot reveal that they have placed another student in counseling. They cannot reveal that they are actively monitoring that student. They cannot reveal if another student is a student with a disability, either physical or emotional disability. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents such disclosures.

At other times, nothing can be confirmed. The administrator cannot find any corroborating evidence to support the claim. This often occurs when the report lacks details. Reports that say things like, “It happens all the time,” and “It happens everywhere,” are really of little value. To prevent this, inappropriate behavior should be reported, immediately, so that evidence can be found to support it. Even when nothing can be confirmed, the administrator may put into place a plan to prevent something from happening in the future.

Plans to prevent further events may include things like keeping the children apart in the classroom, playground, etc; having adults specifically monitor interactions between the students; and having students check in periodically with an administrator or counselor to see if things are better.

Even one determination of bullying is too many and every action intentionally meant to cause physical or emotional harm to another student is wrong and must not be tolerated. Our teachers and administrators come to school every day because they want to help kids. They worry about their kids’ safety, both physical and emotional. They want to protect them.

We want to know about any bad behavior. We must have timely, accurate information to act on it. Express to your child how important it is that they can report accurately what happened, when it happened, and where it happened. Teach them to report any incident of bad behavior immediately. If they come home and tell you, as the parent, contact the principal that afternoon or first thing in the morning. Time is of the essence in any investigation. Again, the administrator can do very little with vague complaints of stuff happening “all the time, everywhere.”

In addition to students, parents, teachers, and administrators working together to report and stop bullying, we need to do more to prevent bullying by empowering kids. We will never excuse inappropriate behavior, but the effects of bad behavior, and thus bullying can be lessened greatly by kids understanding their personal power. As an imbalance of power is one of the conditions of bullying, helping kids see that they are stronger mentally and emotionally than bullies will go a long way in preventing a child from being bullied. Teaching kids to ignore and walk away is a useful tactic to verbal bullying. As is teaching kids to have a confident response, such as, “Your words to not have value to me, so you are wasting your breath.” Teach kids to take charge of their life; not to rely on others and their approval; to find their niche and excel at it.

Lastly, we need to model better behavior for our kids. The way we act towards other adults is often emulated by kids. It has become far too acceptable for adults to lash out at other adults through social media, at sporting events, and in the news media. We are teaching our kids inappropriate behavior. Let’s model the behavior we want from our kids.

Some interesting reads about Bullying.

https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/bullies.html

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-origins-of-bullying/