5517 Bullying and Harassment

The Board directs the administration to ensure that the District’s schools are taking active steps, directed toward both students and staff, surrounding bullying and harassment awareness, prevention, and intervention/response.

The administration shall ensure that bullying and harassment are addressed:

1. Within the District’s personal development and health education curriculum;
2. As an element of technology/Internet safety instruction;
3. As an element of developing and monitoring the overall climate of District schools and programs;
4. By providing staff development resources related to harassment and bullying and communicating to District employees about their responsibilities related to awareness, prevention, and intervention;
5. By enforcing the Board’s expectations that employees and other adults who are present in the school environment will model appropriate behaviors;
6. Through the provision and use of interventions and support for students;
7. By establishing and communicating expectations for student conduct that address negative behaviors that, even if not rising to the level of bullying or harassment, are inappropriate for the school environment and that may be a precursor to bullying or harassment; and
8. By establishing and implementing procedures under which incidents and concerns involving bullying and harassment can be reported and addressed in an appropriate manner.

While there are often challenges associated with appropriately identifying, assessing, and responding to incidents of bullying and harassment, the District’s procedures, services, and communications related to bullying and harassment, as defined and addressed in Board Policy 5517, shall take the following positions of the Board into consideration:

1. The Board expects the District’s response to any incident or course of conduct that involves bullying or harassment under Policy 5517 to exhibit a degree of proportionality to the totality of the known circumstances. No single, pre-defined response is appropriate for all circumstances. Similarly, if District employees conclude that an initial response to an incident or pattern of bullying or harassment has been ineffective, and they know that the behaviors have continued or that the behaviors have escalated, then a proportional response would include changing the District’s approach to intervention.
2. Because these behaviors and their effects differ substantially from one situation to the next, the District can be more effective in its efforts when the students and parents and guardians affected by a serious situation (a) clearly identify the severity and totality of the circumstances of the situation to a teacher or administrator; and (b) participate in an ongoing partnership with District employees to monitor, communicate about, and make adjustments to the response(s) that have been implemented to date.

Application of the Policy Definitions

It is not practical to attempt to list every type or example of conduct that could constitute bullying or harassment under Board Policy 5517. The following additional clarifications are intended to assist in the understanding of the District’s expectations and in the application of the policy:

1. Bullying or harassment can involve direct interaction between the aggressor and the target(s), or it can be indirect (such as orchestrating others to engage in prohibited conduct, facilitating such conduct by others, or taking secretive or covert actions, etc.).
2. While bullying and harassment involve deliberate/purposeful conduct, intent/purpose may properly be inferred from the totality of the circumstances (e.g., where the behavior is persistent/repeated or where the responsible party reasonably should have been able to foresee the consequences of his/her actions and the manner in which his/her conduct would be likely to be perceived by the target(s) of the conduct).
3. Not all behaviors that (a) hurt another person’s feelings; (b) are a manifestation of an interpersonal conflict; or (c) are in some way unkind amount to acts of bullying or harassment as defined in Board Policy 5517. However, such negative behaviors are still a legitimate subject of concern and regulation within the school environment. Further, it shall be a goal of the District’s educational programs to help students and others recognize that even one-time instances of, for example, name-calling, negative teasing, put-downs, or excluding others (when inclusion was readily possible) can be inappropriate and hurtful to others.
4. Conduct may occur (or be reported or alleged) that would constitute prohibited bullying or harassment under Board Policy 5517 except that the conduct lacked a sufficient connection to a District program or activity or otherwise occurred outside the scope of the District’s rule-making, investigatory, or disciplinary authority. The District is not able to fully investigate and impose the same school-related consequences for such non-school conduct. However, where the District determines that such an out-of-school incident (or alleged incident) is having, or is likely to have, adverse effects within the school environment, the Board authorizes District staff to address the situation by, for example, considering support or interventions for affected students (e.g., safety planning, counseling, etc.).
5. A student’s good-faith expression of his/her ideas or beliefs (e.g., expression that does not deny or interfere with the rights of others and that is undertaken at an appropriate time and place and in an appropriate manner) is neither bullying nor harassment, even where others do not agree with those ideas or beliefs. However, a student’s manner of expression is subject to appropriate regulation in the school environment when, for example, it causes a substantial disruption or has the purpose or foreseeable effect of intimidating, threatening, degrading, or harassing others.