Delaware Business Lawyer Blog

Most anti-bullying laws require that schools report all acts of bullying that occur in the schools. After all, if bullying is not reported, how can anyone know if the anti-bullying laws are working? A major problem appears to be that teachers and school administrators either tolerate acts of bullying or fail to recognize when bullying occurs. In Iowa recently, for example, a parent was getting no satisfaction at the school level after she complained that her child was being bullied. So this mother decided to start emailing the school board, and she was relentless. Believe it or not, here’s the response she received from the president of the school board:

"We do not need your scathing emails to this board and administration about how little we are doing!!!! WE ARE WORKING ON IT!! Do you understand? As far as the cyberbullying, I would equate this to passing around notes in school back before there was (F)acebook. ... Even if the princip(als) hold an assembly and tell the kids not to cyberbully, you really think they are all going to, magically, not do it any more. Please, be a little more realistic than that."

The mother took her child out of that school district and had him go to school in a different school district.

Adults who hold responsible positions in the schools and school districts must take bullying more seriously. No child should fear going to school. No child’s parents should have to worry for their child’s physical and mental well-being when they send their child off to school in the morning.

If you’re the parent of a child who is being bullied at a school in Delaware and your pleas for help are falling on deaf ears, it’s probably time to seek out an attorney who can be your advocate and your child’s advocate.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “Bullying may be the most under-reported safety problem in American schools.” I wholeheartedly agree. If the schools in Delaware don’t report all acts of bullying to the school district, that makes it impossible for the school district to accurately report bullying incidents to the State Department of Education. This, in turn, prevents the DOE from accurately measuring how effective or ineffective their bullying prevention programs have been. But rather than blame the schools, it is the school districts that have the duty of closely monitoring the schools to make certain that the bullying prevention programs are being adhered to.

Questions that each school district must ask on a regular basis are:

(1) how should we measure the effectiveness of our anti-bullying programs.

(2) what sensitivity, psychological or other training should school teachers and administrators receive to help them understand the risk factors and warning signs associated with bullying, and the investigation and response to allegations of bullying

(3) what records should be maintained regarding investigations and responses to allegations of bullying

Until these questions and others are properly addressed, bullying in our schools will continue to be under-reported.

School bullying can be physical, verbal, written, electronic, or any combination of these types of actions. In Delaware, whether certain actions constitute bullying depends on a “reasonable person” standard. For instance, a particular action is considered bullying if, in the opinion of a reasonable person, it would place a student in fear of:
(1) substantial harm to her physical well-being
(2) substantial harm to her emotional well-being or
(3) substantial damage to her property

An action is also deemed to be bullying if a reasonable person believes that its pervasiveness or persistence has the effect of creating an educational environment that is:
(1) hostile
(2) threatening
(3) humiliating or
(4) abusive

Another form of bullying in Delaware is where one or more of these actions interferes with the student having a safe environment while at school.

After speaking with parents of students who have been bullied, it seems to me that educators at both the school and district level have a problem distinguishing between acts of bullying and situations where kids are just being kids. Maybe the problem is that school administrators don’t get the fact that what used to be tolerated as kids just being kids should no longer be tolerated. Due to this mentality, school administrators are turning a blind eye to acts of bullying.

Here are some real life examples of what’s happening to our children in the schools.

In one case, a student was often thrown into a trash. He was also placed upside down in a toilet bowl, and had his head flushed several times. On another occasion, he was stripped nude, tied up, and again placed into a trash can.

In another case, a girl student was frequently called a “slut” by other girls, and a male student sitting next to her in class and would stick his hand down her pants. School officials actually observed this behavior and looked the other way.

A gay student was constantly being called names like "fag," "butt pirate," "fairy," and "homo." Other students lassoed him around the neck and suggested dragging him behind a truck.

Many victims of bullying live in constant fear for their safety. Their schoolwork suffers and their grades fall. Their health also deteriorates. Isn’t it time for school officials to take action to protect our kids when they’re in school?

I’ve written about bullying in school, but in light of the fact that the month of February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, I thought I’d focus on dating violence and how it’s often related to school bullying.

It shouldn’t be surprising that there’s physical or emotional abuse in some relationships between two teenagers who are dating. It also shouldn’t be surprising that this abuse carries over to the school environment when these two teens attend the same school. Let’s look at one example. A young woman is being physically or emotionally abused by her boyfriend. She finally gets up the courage to break off the relationship, and she stops seeing him. Unfortunately, her ex-boyfriend attends the same school she does, and she runs into him in the halls, in some of her classes, while she’s waiting for the bus, etc. When the abuse spills over to the school, it falls within the definition of bullying, and it becomes the duty of the school to protect her from her ex-boyfriend.

As a Delaware attorney who represents both boys and girls who are the victims of bullying, it is disturbing to find that there is a built in prejudice against the girl on the part of many school officials. Here’s what happens. When a boy bullies another boy, teachers, principals and others treat it as bullying. When a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend bullies a girl, school officials often treat it as nothing more than a spat. In one of my cases, the principal actually said “I can’t get involved in every little argument between boyfriend and girlfriend. And she said this after the boy had tried to push the girl down the steps, after he placed his hands around her throat, and after he was arrested at school for this conduct.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) “teen dating violence” is defined as the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence within a dating relationship, According to a national study, almost 1 out of 10 high school students were hit, slapped or physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend during the last 12 months.

For more information, click on the following references:

information for parents

National Teen Dating Violence Hotline

U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services

As a Delaware attorney who represents students who are being bullied (and their parents), what I usually find is that the parents who meet with me are exhausted from trying to protect their child, and they feel like they’re up against a brick wall. Because October 2010 is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, I’d like to share some resources that will be of interest to any parent of a child who is being bullied in school or on the school bus.

What To Do If Your Child Is Being Bullied - published by the U.S. Dept. Of Health & Human Services

Bullying at School and Online - published by education.com.

Bullying Prevention and Response - published by the U.S. Dept. of Education - this is an excellent site that provides links and a newsletter

Kids Against Bullying - for elementary school students

Teens Against Bullying - published by National Center for Bullying Prevention

Bullying and Harassment - published by Wrightslaw - contains links to a great many resources

Each year, the Delaware Department of Education is required to prepare an annual report of certain offenses, including bullying, that occur in school. The School Safety and Discipline Report for the 2009-2010 school year shows, among other things, the following:

(1) 21,690 students were either suspended or expelled - this represents 17.11% of the student population

(2) 556 incidents of bullying

(3) 2,585 incidents of offensive touching of a student

(3) 194 incidents of terroristic threatening of a student

(4) 118 incidents of sexual harassment

We all know that crime statistics only reflect the crimes that are reported, and that may victims don’t call the police. Well, the same thing applies to bullying in schools. The annual report does not tell the entire story because not all acts of bullying are reported by the victims. And in those cases where the victim does report it, the schools don’t always report it to the Dept. Of Education even though they are obligated by law to do so. By concealing the fact that bulling occurred in their school, the school deprives the Department of Education of the ability to take corrective action, and perpetuates an atmosphere in which bullying can exist.

A school that fails to take effective action when it learns of incidents of bullying reinforces the power dynamic that bullying depends on, and it sends a message to the students that bullying is acceptable.

With all of the press coverage these days, bullying in school is clearly a predictable pattern of behavior. As a result, bullying is foreseeable. In Delaware, schools and school districts have to comply with legally mandated requirements relating to bullying. As Delaware attorney who protects the rights of students who are bullied, let me share with you some of these requirements.

(1) Duty to Inform Administration: If a school employee is aware of information that would cause a reasonable person to suspect that a student is being bullied, that employee has a duty to report it to the school administration.

(2) Duty to Investigate: The school administration has a duty to promptly investigate to see whether bullying actually occurred.

(3) On-Site Committees. At each school there has to be a committee on site that is responsible for the school’s bullying prevention program.

(4) Duty to Notify the State Department of Education: Each and every incident of bullying must be reported to the Department of Education within 5 days.

(5) Communicating Policy: Each school’s bullying prevention policy has to be printed in the student handbook and the staff handbook.

(6) Annual Reports: All incidents of bullying that are reported to the Department of Education must be included in the annual School Conduct Reports for the School and for the District.

Students and their parents must be informed that there is a procedure in place for reporting acts of bullying, and the steps to follow under that procedure. They also have to be informed that retaliation for reporting bullying is strictly prohibited.