Another bullying thread

[Timmy Boy]

This question is aimed at any lawyers, teachers, or anyone else on this board who may know about education law. What legal powers do schools actually have to deal with bullying?

[Gyaku]

It is largely quite limited. Schools can temporarily exclude pupils for bullying. However permanant exclusion is a load more difficult, as this frequently needs to go through the LEA (local education authority), parents can appeal at most of these levels. It also depends on the level of bullying - if out and out violence is used - exclusion is normally easy to do, depending on the schools attitude. Verbal bullying is another matter - very hard to prove.

[tellner]

In the post-Columbine United States there were proposals to set up snitch-lines (complete with rewards) to report victims of bullying. The logic was that they should be placed under increased surveillance because they were the ones who shot up schools. My country has passed through the raging cataracts of insanity and is sculling peacefully in a pool on the other side. :bang:

[Timmy Boy]

That infuriates me. I can't STAND the way no-one does anything to help the victims but always punishes them when they retaliate.

I had what I would call a good moral upbringing. I was taught to be good to others, and also that bad behaviour would be punished. This was not the case at school. The victims of bullying had no avenue via which to resolve their problems because the teachers just weren't interested, and if they retaliated because there was nothing else they could do, THEY were the ones who got punished. It felt like everything I had believed in morally was a load of rubbish. I'm not going to justify what the columbine killers did, but if you've got a kid sitting there who knows he has no other way of stopping the bullying, what are you going to suggest he does instead?

If the most radical attempt a school has made about bullying is a "snitch line" to report VICTIMS, then the situation will never improve. I think society is just too willing to blame the victim for it to ever be fair.

But I'm digressing. What ARE teachers able to do? What are their actual powers to deal with bullying?

[Gyaku]

What ARE teachers able to do? What are their actual powers to deal with bullying?

As I said - not very much. in England there is an 'inclusion' policy - which basically means that you have to have every thug in the area in school. As a teacher you have a few sanctions open to you. You can put them in detention etc - however a lot of this needs permission from the parent(s) - who most of the time can't believe that their sweet Johnny is actually Hannibal Lector. So the short of it is individual teachers can't do very much.

Som eschools have introduced 'whole' school policies, whereby bullying is quite strongly clamped down on - teachers gets loads of support from other teachers, the principal etc. This can be quite successful - but normally is only implimented once bullying has already got out of hand.

Why do you want to know?

[Timmy Boy]

Because, when bullying happened at my school, the teachers didn't do much about it. I thought this was because they couldn't do much - a lot of it was verbal, or throwing things at people, rather than violence, and this is almost impossible to prove. Then the other day my friend told me that there is ALWAYS something schools can do, it's just a case of whether or not they want to.

The things she gave as examples seemed rather dubious, e.g. talking to the bully and talking to his/her parents - the bully's just going to deny it, and the parents will refuse to believe that he's a bully, so then what? So I thought I'd ask if there's anything else that teachers can do. Bullying is a subject I care about a lot because it happened to me and my friends.

Detention doesn't work in my experience because the kind of people who bully thrive on their reputation as a rebel, so detention adds to their image without really punishing them much. Suspension with the threat of expulsion did work with one guy, but that was a physical attack with witnesses on my side and had it been any other way I doubt I would have had sufficient proof.

[Gyaku]

Then the other day my friend told me that there is ALWAYS something schools can do, it's just a case of whether or not they want to.

I've worked in secondary schools in the past. I can quite assure you that its really hard for a teacher to do very much. The number one problem (like any crime) is proof.

Personally I think we should rename bullying for what it is:

Verbal Assault, Harrassment etc

They are crimes. CCTV etc are a good way to sort out these problems.

[NeonxBurst]

Well up till last year when our district found out about it, my PE teacher held "matches" in the boxing room of our jr high school, where bullies would go head to head with kids that were willing to fight for the ones that couldnt stand up for theirselves.

[NaughtyKnight]

I remember when I got bullied on my first day of primary school. I knocked the guy out and never got bullied again.

Later on I was a bully for a year or 2. I think its just a way youths sociallise togther, by giving others a hard time. Sad I know, but its life.

[TigerAn1]

This question is aimed at any lawyers, teachers, or anyone else on this board who may know about education law. What legal powers do schools actually have to deal with bullying?
Legally, the school won't do a thing outside of a day or two suspension. The parent of the bullied student has to take action to get that done. I know, I've done it. Outside of that- not too much. The school might watch the kid for awhile and give him/her a hard time. The best thing to do is to confront the kids parents, and let them know what's happening. The worst is middle school- it's rampant.

[noodlemaster]

sheesh...even the name "snitch line" sounds so negative and repulsive.

[Slindsay]

It does seem to me that quite a bit of it comes down to how willing the teacher is to do something about whats being done, if the teachers dont care/accept it as something that cant be helped then their isnt much that can be done about it but if the teachers are willing then they can do something to help the victim.

The snitch line thing makes me laugh, I can just see a group of bullies holding down a scrawny kid kicking him senseless whilst one of them reports what they are doing down the phone:

Bully: "Yeah now we're stamping on his head a bit and kicking his ribs in..."
Operator: "Dont worry sir, a team will be dispatched to arrest your victim presently, just dont let him get up"