Schools

Board Will Reconsider District Anti-Bullying Post

The position had be voted down in September after board members asked how many hours were spent on the new anti bullying protocols.

Two months of data on harassment intimidation and bullying show district personnel spending close to 1,000 hours reacting to the incidents, leading the Board of Education to reconsider the district level anti-bulling coordinator it vetoed in September.

The board requested data regarding the hours spent on harassment, intimidation and bullying incidents as a result of the state’s new laws on handling the incidents. Under the laws, the district is required to document, investigate, and report each incident as well as hold two public hearings on the number and nature of the incidents.

Upon learning of a bullying incident, school staff must report it in writing to the principal within one day, with a full investigation to follow in the next ten days. 

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As a result, the district’s spent 439 hours on incidents in September and 520 hours on the incidents in October, meaning it’s spend just under 1,000 hours handling the incidents. The totals include 564 hours of work by the district’s in-school anti-bullying coordinators, 329 hours spent by the school administrators, and 62 hours spent by the district’s anti bullying coordinator.

Most of the hours are spent on administrative tasks, including investigating reported incidents, verification and the reports themselves, Schiff said.

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“It does significantly impact other work that is unfortunately not able to get done,” Schiff said.

As a result, Schiff asked the board to reconsider the state-mandated anti-bullying coordinator that had been vetoed in September. The part-time position would handle many of the provisions from the new law, as well as fielding questions from school anti-bullying specialists and arranging proactive procedures, protocols, and programs for students and staff.

Should the board decide against hiring the part-time coordinator, the district may be forced to hire an additional guidance counselor for the high school because of the time spent on the incidents.

 

But the high school Student Counsel Representative to the board questioned the position, as well as the focus on bullying.

“I’m not saying bullying doesn’t exist, but I am saying that bullying is going to exist,” Daria Grastara said. “ I wish that half of this motivation was put into substance abuse. There are kids in my classes that are drinking alcohol and taking drugs, yet we’re more concerned about whether someone says the word, ‘stupid’, in the hallway.

“I understand where this is coming from,” she added. “.  .  .We can’t have library assistants  to have the library open after school for students to work on academics yet we can someone focused on this? I think that instead of having someone have this job we should have our suicide prevention  coordinator, Patricia Colontino, handle this .  .  .”

Colontino already handles the school’s bullying incidents, since she performs the investigations for the high school, Board President Steven Paget noted.

“Now, the law has put an administrative component on it,” “There’s a lot more of an administrative side that has put a lot of hours on it.  .  . The concern is that the administrative hours that have been put in are taking away from other things that could be done, like alcohol prevention.”

 

“We need to be more proactive on all kinds of problems that students are having, not just substance abuse and anti bullying, but academic problems,” Marc Rosenberg said. “.  .  .The documentation and  the amount of time spent by people who should be more proactive in other areas is just enormous. . .It seems to me we have to do it as efficiently as possible.  .  .The way we do it now just doesn’t seem efficient at all.”

Board member Judy Haas asked how many hours would be spent on the incidents had the law not been passed. According to Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Scott Rocco, the law protocols require districts to conduct the investigation regardless of whether an incident is determined to be harassment, intimidation or bullying—necessitating the extra hours.

“These are thorough investigations,” he said. “Some take three hours, some take less, some take much more .  .  .It definitely has an effect on what they’re doing, when they’re doing and how much they’re doing based on their job description and what they are contracted to do with us.”

Haas also asked whether the new procedures are affecting the investigations as personnel adjust to the new laws.  

“It just seems to me that there might be an inordinate amount of fuss going on about the new procedures,” she said. “There just might be some time management procedures that could be implemented that could handle the administrative work and make it a lot easier on these people.  .  .It seems to me just the aggregate number of time spent on disciplinary matters doesn’t tell me much.”

Other board members, like Thomas Kinst, asked to see more data over time, echoing Haas’ points about new procedures and time efficiencies.

“I’d like to see, basically, the first semester of these data,” he said.

But Rosenberg noted that most of the hours spent on the new law requirements are reactive rather than proactive—another aspect of the law, Rocco confirmed.

“If we are going to address this new law correctly, we have to have a reactive end, and yes, in the beginning there is going to be a lot more reaction, and a proactive end,” Rocco said.

Board member Greg Gillette suggested introducing the position as a January to June post, then deciding whether to keep it during the board’s normal budget process.

“These are real hours that are consumed by professionals who need to do other things,” he said. “I think it’s rather serendipitous that we just happened to get an increase in the Ed Jobs money of $27,000. I would be in favor of putting forth that position.  .  .I think that when we go into the budget process in March-April, at that time we’ll have enough numbers to decide if we want to continue that position that will then have to be funded through the general fund.”

 In order to have the coordinator begin in January, the board would need to decide on the position by December, Schiff said. As a result, it will discuss and vote on the position—with bullying data from November—during its December meetings.


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