Education Law

Looking the bully in the face

The Associated Press reported by way of The New York Times that New York City schools have new rules for tackling bullying.

Yesterday, Mayer Michael R. Bloomberg announced new policies for dealing with bullying that is based on bias. According to the article:

The policy is intended to deter intimidation and harassment based on ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Every principal will be required to designate a staff member to whom students can report bullying, and schools will be required to report complaints to the Department of Education within 24 hours.

The schools will have to investigate the complaints and contact the families of students accused of bias-based harassment.

A report of the complaints, broken down by school, will be made public on the Internet at the end of each school year.

BoardBuzz has covered bullying before. ( Check here and here), and we are glad to see these New York City schools establishing clear regulations and policies to both combat and prevent bullying. Does your district have unique or noteworthy policies for bullying prevention? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on September 04, 2008 (boomark / email).