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We have just updated one of our most popular resources. You can find our latest bullying law fact sheet here. As you can see, all but 2 states now have bullying laws in place or scheduled to take effect in 2012. Most of these (35) include language about electronic forms of bullying while still relatively few (10) use the term “cyberbullying.” Several states have proposals being discussed for new or updated laws.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am skeptical about the ability of new laws to (by themselves) change behavior. I was talking with a friend last week about cyberbullying and he thought that the solution to the problem was simply to pass strict laws that punish those who bully others. When confronted with an opportunity to bully, the logic goes, a youth will think twice because they will not want to be arrested and punished (fined or even incarcerated). This is a reasonable idea in theory, but the fact is that teens are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of formal punishment. Spend some time reading the deterrence research literature and you will see that formal deterrence just isn’t effective, especially for adolescents. Informal deterrence, however, has shown to be useful. That is, youth are reluctant to get involved in behavior that they feel their parents or good friends would disapprove of. They don’t want to be “punished” by those they care about. Plus, it is a lot more likely that friends or family members will find out about their inappropriate behaviors than the formal justice system. So the bottom line is that educators, parents, and others who work with teens need to consistently condemn all forms of harassment so that youth will pick up the message that bullying is just plain wrong.

All of this is not to say that I do not see value in bullying laws, assuming they are reasonable and implementable. As I have discussed often on this blog, laws should be prescriptive by telling school officials and others (parents, law enforcement, etc.) what they can and should be doing to prevent and respond to bullying. But they should also provide resources so that these mandates can be carried out effectively. (see my analysis of New Jersey’s recently-enacted law for more discussion of this). Passing a law that merely prohibits bullying, or that requires schools to have a policy prohibiting bullying, does little to stop the behaviors if resources (money, professional development, and technical assistance) are not also made available. This is especially true for school officials who are genuinely interested in curtailing the harassment that is impacting their students and school.

Back to the new fact sheet. We also added an additional column to our summary table on the first page which specifies whether the state statutes explicitly allow for the discipline of students for their bullying behaviors that occur off of school property or outside of a school sponsored event. We know that most cyberbullying does occur away from school, and as a result some educators have been reluctant to get involved. A few states have included language in their new statutes which clarifies the school’s responsibility and role when it comes to off-campus incidents (see especially, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey for good examples).

It needs to be pointed out, however, that even without this language in the new laws, current case law certainly does allow schools to reasonably and appropriately discipline students for their off-campus behaviors (such as cyberbullying), if the behaviors result or have a likelihood of resulting in a substantial disruption of the learning environment at school. This is the exact language used in many of the new laws because this is the standard that was established in the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines back in 1969. Subsequent Supreme Court and other federal court decisions have applied this standard to a variety of situations, including the online behaviors of students. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently reviewed two cases where students used web sites to denigrate their principals. Even though the court ultimately sided with the students in both cases—saying that their respective schools went too far in disciplining them—the opinion clearly defended the substantial disruption standard that has long governed the actions of educators when confronting problematic student behavior that occurs away from school. Judge Jordon noted in a concurring opinion that: “The issue is whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker, can be applicable to off-campus speech. I believe it can, and no ruling coming out today is to the contrary.” You can read my full analysis of this decision here.

In summary, take the time to review your state’s bullying law and make sure it is useful to you whether you are an educator, parent, or other concerned citizen. Don’t wait until something bad happens to get educated. Upon reviewing your state’s law you may find that it is insufficient or unclear and now is the time to lobby (and educate) your elected officials. Also take the time to review your school policy concerning bullying and harassment. Is it consistent with the law and does it provide you with the tools you need to effectively prevent and respond to bullying? Does it explicitly cover cyberbullying or other forms of bullying that occur away from school? What does it say about those behaviors that occur away from school?

We will continue to update this fact sheet regularly as new laws are proposed and passed so feel free to bookmark the link (http://www.cyberbullying.us/Bullying_and_Cyberbullying_Laws.pdf) so that you always have the most recent version. And if you are aware of any new proposals or laws in your state that are not included in our fact sheet, please let us know.

As we begin the new school year and reaquaint ourselves with some of the negatives implications that student-owned electronic devices at school may have, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about teachers and administrators confiscating cell phones due to school policy violations. Many of us know from experience that it may be more of a headache than it is worth because students can be crafty and even defiant at times.  Let’s say that your school policy prohibits their display or use, and you see a 9th grader texting under his desk during Geometry.  You then stop what you are doing, go up to him, and ask him to give you his phone.  He could then do any of the following:

1.  Tell you he didn’t know about the policy.

2.  Straight up refuse to give you his phone.

3.  Tell you that he can’t give you his phone because his parents paid a lot of money for it, and will beat him if he gets it confiscated.  (By the way, what do you do with that?)

4.  Discreetly switch out the phone he actually uses with an older phone he keeps in his pocket or backpack or desk – and give you that one.  You wouldn’t know the difference.

5.  Give you the phone but keep the battery.  This of course keeps you from searching its contents should you have suspicion of another policy violation (apart from just cell phone display or use) or suspicion of a crime committed, with evidence reasonably believed to exist on the phone.

6.  Give you the phone but keep the SIM card.  (Justin and I have heard stories where the student has actually swallowed the SIM card to keep it from being confiscated).

7.  Give you the phone but not tell you the lock code or password on it.  This keeps you from searching the contents as described above.

8. Tell you to take it from them, which could lead to a tug-of-war over the device and physical contact and conflict that we want to avoid at all costs with a student.

Are there any other outcomes that have happened to you when you’ve tried to confiscate?

To note, we’ve written extensively on when you can and cannot SEARCH the contents of phones (see here and the Related Posts, as well as Chapter 9 of our new book.  In this blog, I wanted to focus in on confiscation complications.  Let us know your thoughts and experiences!

Many educators have struggled to confront the challenges associated with high-tech devices in the classrooms (especially cell phones).  Cyberbullying.  Cheating.  Distractions.  Inappropriate digital material. There is no shortage of possible issues. The seemingly easy way to respond to these concerns has been to ban all personal electronic devices from the classroom (or the entire school).  I have heard about penalties that include students being fined or surrendering the device until the end of the day or even until the end of the school year!  This is just crazy.  First of all, short of strip-searching students as they enter the school, it is practically impossible to enforce a complete ban on technology in the school.  Most administrators have largely conceded this point and therefore enacted policies which say something to the effect of: “If I see it, you lose it.”  A colleague of ours recently quipped that schools approach cell phones the same way they do underwear: “We know you have them, we just don’t want to see them in class.”  It is really unfortunate that these powerful devices have been excluded from learning environments where they could actually be put to positive uses.

Recently, however, it seems that increasing numbers of schools are looking to loosen their overly restrictive cell phone policies. We have received a number of queries over the last couple of months from districts that would like to allow students to bring their own devices, to be used for educational purposes.  It is easy to see how cell phones, iPads, or laptops could augment curriculum delivery in the classroom: flash-polling; looking up multi-media definitions of difficult concepts; pulling up a map of a far-off place; viewing a video of an endangered species…. The possibilities are literally endless.  And we also know that the vast majority of teens already have, and regularly use, these devices (e.g., 75% of 12 to 17 year-olds have their own cell phones, according to Pew).  So there is enormous upside here.

But we do need to recognize the potential problems that may accompany the positives when students “bring their own devices” to school.  It is important to stress, though, that the problem isn’t cell phones or other particular devices.  The problem is how these devices are being (mis)used by some.  Most schools already have a bullying/harassment policy.  These documents should be reviewed to make sure they explicitly cover cyberbullying.  Students, staff, parents, and others need to understand that inappropriate behaviors will not be tolerated and are subject to discipline.  And be specific—talk about harassment and cheating and disrupting the class environment by texting or Facebooking, etc.  Clearly outline the consequences for such behaviors.  Get students and parents in on this discussion.  Schools will have problems as the school community gets used to these changes, but hopefully the problems will be few and far between and will get better with time.  Students will learn appropriate behaviors and it should – in time – become the norm if done right.  For example, ten years ago cell phones were much more of a problem in my college classrooms than they are now.  University students, at least in my experience, have gotten better at cell phone etiquette and are not letting the devices distract the learning that is occurring.  Sure, occasionally a phone will go off in class, but usually the student is apologetic and immediately realizes the faux pas.  Of course middle and high school students are different than those in a univesrity, but I am optimistic that we can work through the same challenges at the secondary school level.

There should also be some discussion in school policy that administrators can conduct a reasonable “search” of the contents of these devices when there is “reasonable suspicion” that evidence of a violation of school policy is on the device.  Schools can’t search these devices whenever they feel like it, but if the search is reasonable and supported by a justifiable need, it could be allowed.  There is some debate about this, so be sure to run it by your legal counsel (you can read more about this here.  We also discuss it in great detail in our new book.) Either way, the circumstances under which school officials can search student-owned devices need to be made explicit.  This will definitely come up, so make sure you are ready.  And again, students, parents, and others need to know the standards.  If you are an educator in a school that recently opened up to electronic devices, please let us know how it is going (the good and the bad!).  If you are a student, we would appreciate hearing your experiences as well.

Given the prominence of several high-profile incidents in recent months, cyberbullying has been all over the media. As a result, parents, educators, and other youth-serving adults are looking for information to educate themselves about this problem. Even though cyberbullying may seem fairly new to many, a core group of researchers and Internet safety advocates have been exploring this problem for years and therefore have a unique, empirically informed perspective to offer. Even before much of the recent attention on cyberbullying, Sameer and I came up with the idea to approach these experts and invite them to contribute a chapter for a cyberbullying book. We identified a hand-picked selection of contributors who we feel best understand cyberbullying issues and are widely recognized as authorities on this topic. In addition to these select experts, we wrote two chapters (one summarizing the current state of the research and another directed toward school-based law enforcement officers. Our vision was to collect in one text all of the major issues adults need to be aware of with respect to cyberbullying identification, prevention, and response. The result is our new book: Cyberbullying Prevention and Response: Expert Perspectives, which will be in print on June 24th, 2011.

We hope that Cyberbullying Prevention and Response: Expert Perspectives will serve as the definitive guide to assist you in addressing the ways teens misuse technology to cause harm to their peers. This book voices the views and experiences of the best and brightest youth online risk professionals in the United States. The knowledge and resources shared in this book are guided by research, but presented in an accessible way that will be useful for all who work with teens. What is more, they can be considered some of the “best practices” currently known regarding preventing and responding to cyberbullying. We hope that you benefit greatly from what is shared throughout the following chapters:

Table of Contents
1. A “Living Internet”: Some Context for the Cyberbullying Discussion, Anne Collier
2. Cyberbullying: An Update and Synthesis of the Research, Justin W. Patchin and Sameer Hinduja
3. Cyberbullying and the Law, Nancy Willard
4. Youth Views on Cyberbullying, Patricia Agatston, Robin Kowalski, and Susan Limber
5. Cyberbullying: How School Counselors Can Help, Russell Sabella
6. Empowering Bystanders, Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon
7. You Mean We Gotta Teach That, Too? Mike Donlin
8. A “Toolbox” of Cyberbullying Prevention Initiatives and Activities, Jenny Walker
9. Responding to Cyberbullying: Advice for Educators and Parents, Elizabeth K. Englander
10. School Law Enforcement and Cyberbullying, Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin
Appendix A: Select Cyberbullying Curricula, Lesson Plans, and Materials
Appendix B: List of States with Bullying and Cyberbullying Laws

As a pre-publication promotion, the publisher (Routledge) is offering a 20% discount on books ordered through their Web site. Just enter the discount code “ERJ60″ after the book is added to your shopping cart. If you would like to place a bulk order of this book, let us know and we can get you an even deeper discount! As always, we appreciate any feedback you have about our publications and resources. Don’t hesitate to drop us a note to tell us what you think.

As we continue to work with public and private schools around the nation, we see much variability in the formal policies in place related to student-owned electronic devices and their display and use on campuses. Some schools have simply elected to ban all netbooks, tablets and iPads, laptop computers, smartphones (e.g., iPhones, Blackberrys, Evos), Nintendo DSis, and other portable electronic devices that are Web-enabled in some capacity. These actions have lead to criticism by some parents, who say they need to be able to contact their kids in the case of an emergency – and who don’t want educators to handle or look through expensive personal items that aren’t theirs in the first place. It can also be very difficult to enforce a complete ban without searching all students as they enter the school each day.

A better approach may be to have clearly specified guidelines for when and where the devices are allowed and what will happen if a student is caught using a device at a prohibited time or place. The following is a list of rules that you may want to consider. Please note that this list is a “work in progress” and presented for the purposes of fostering discussion on the topic, rather than as a formal recommendation from our Research Center.

Possible Rules for Portable Electronic Devices at School

Portable electronic devices include – but are not limited to – laptops, cell phones, personal data assistants, portable electronic games, digital audio players, digital cameras, and gaming wristwatches.

1. Students must have all portable electronic devices turned off during the school day except during prescribed times (e.g., the lunch period).

2. No portable electronic device may be visible during the school day except during prescribed times (e.g., the lunch period).

3. Students are not allowed to use any device to photograph or record (either in audio or video format) another person on school property at any time without that person’s permission. Students should use our anonymous reporting system/form (NOTE: You, the reader, should create one for your school or district!) to let us know when you see violations of this rule.

4. Portable electronic devices are not allowed in any classroom, bathroom, or locker room.

5. Any unauthorized use of portable electronic devices will lead to confiscation.

6. Any confiscated portable electronic device may be searched by parents or law enforcement as necessary. (NOTE: They may not, but they may – it is not necessary to get into the specifics of this in your formal policy).

7. Students who violate this policy may also be subject to disciplinary action as noted in the Student Handbook.

To be sure, we have also discussed how some districts require parents to retrieve confiscated phones (instead of handing them back to the student) – and also require a nontrivial fine to be paid (typically between $15 and $25). I also know of schools where a rule violation leads to phone confiscation for five school days (for example, if the phone is confiscated on a Thursday, it is returned the following Wednesday). This, of course, is a significant loss since many teens *need* their cell phones on the weekends – and parents need their teens to have a cell phone to reach them when they are out and about on the weekends. If the student resists giving up the phone, it becomes ten days. Our readers might find that excessive, but youth need to internalize the reality of consequences that have teeth to them.

What is your school doing? Has it worked in reducing cyberbullying and other inappropriate uses of these devices on campus? What might be added to this list? We look forward to hearing input from those of you on the front lines of this complicated issue.