A federal jury recently ordered the Hudson Area School District (Michigan) to pay $800,000 in damages to a student who endured years of emotional, physical, and sexual bullying.  Dane Patterson was in middle school when the bullying began as simple name calling and verbal harassment.  It escalated in high school and included being pushed into lockers and at least one incident in 10th grade where he was sexually harassed - which involved “a naked student rubbing against him” in a locker room.

Most states require their schools to have an anti-bullying policy, and Hudson Schools did.  On some occasions when bullying was reported to the school and the perpetrators could be identified, they were punished.  In other cases teachers who witnessed bullying or who were made aware of it failed to follow through with involving school administration.  And according to court records, in one case a geography teacher actually contributed to the problem by making fun of Patterson in front of the entire class by saying: “How does it feel to be hit by a girl?” after he was slapped by a female student when he attempted to stop her from bullying a classmate.  This is almost unbelievable.

This case is a clear message to schools that inaction, or even a simple unwise reaction, is not enough when it comes to dealing with bullies.  Districts need to be proactive in preventing bullying from getting out of control.  It is one thing to have a policy in place prohibiting bullying.  It is so much important for schools to actively enforce it and take additional steps to foster a positive climate in which bullying of all kinds is not tolerated (by staff or students).  Staff need to educate students about appropriate behaviors and take action (informal or formal) against bullies.  Adults who argue that bullying is a normal part of growing up (“kids will be kids”) are contributing to the problem. Students, too, have a role when they see bullying occurring.  Standing by and watching it occur without doing anything is also contributing to a culture where bullying is considered normative behavior and therefore passively condoned and tolerated.  If you are a student and see someone being bullied, please tell an adult in the school that you trust will take appropriate actions (without making things worse for you or the target).  Together, students and staff can work together to create and maintain a positive learning environment free from harassment and abuse.

We’ve had quite a bit of feedback regarding our recent post that discussed whether or not schools can discipline students for creating a Facebook page that is critical of, or harassing toward, a staff member.  The courts have given their perspective on a few different cases, but I thought I would post this simple poll for readers to weigh in themselves regarding their personal beliefs about what should or should not be allowed. Feel free to add the justification for your answer as a comment.

(if you don’t see a poll below, please try again later…we have been having trouble with the polling software)

There have been a few high profile cases recently reviewed by the courts, and summarized in the media, where students have sued their schools arguing that discipline they received as a result of improper online speech was a violation of their First Amendment right.  The most recent case involved a former Florida high school student, Katherine Evans, who created a Facebook page called “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!” and encouraged other students to “express [their] feelings of hatred.”  Evans was suspended for three days and removed from her AP classes under a policy prohibiting the bullying and cyberbullying of staff.  With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the student sued the principal.  Judge Barry Garber ruled in favor of the student, saying the school overstepped its authority in disciplining Evans.

Two other recent cases involved similar facts.  In 2005, 17-year-old Justin Layshock created a “nonthreatening, non‐obscene parody profile making fun of the school principal.”  While the school’s disciplinary action (10 day suspension) was initially upheld in a 2006 hearing, the judge in the case later reversed himself, saying the school went too far.  In February of 2010, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in and agreed.  In 2007, a 14-year-old student from Pennsylvania was disciplined for creating a profile calling her principal “a sex addict and pedophile.”  In this case, the court upheld the actions of the school.  These differing opinions seemingly left everyone wondering what the standard really is.  But in all of these cases, it came down to whether or not the speech resulted in a substantial disruption at school.

Sameer and I discuss the issue of student speech quite often in our workshops for educators, because it is such a tricky matter.  And we hear many examples where students create inappropriate profiles online directed toward other students or staff.  In fact, earlier this week a mother called me to seek my assistance in helping to remove a Facebook page that her son had created disparaging a teacher at his school.

It is important to acknowledge that students certainly do have free speech protections under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  It must be noted, however, that when at school, student speech can be restricted much more than if the student was not physically on campus.  A large body of case law has established that schools can discipline students, and restrict their speech at school, as necessary to maintain an appropriate learning environment (see, for example, Bethel School District v. Fraser, 1986 and Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 1988).  To be sure, case law has also focused on limiting the ability of educators to restrict speech to only that which occurs on school grounds (see Thomas v. Board of Education, Granville Central School District, 1979).

That said, technology has once again created gray areas with respect to these principles.  What about student speech that occurs away from school but that clearly has some impact on the school?  For example, what if a student creates a web site, from home, using their own personal computer, where they harass a student or criticize a staff member?  This is off-campus speech that clearly affects the school.  While there has been some inconsistency, the courts have generally ruled that in order for educators to intervene in off-campus incidents, they must demonstrate that the speech or behavior caused, or has a great likelihood of causing, a substantial disruption at school.  Just because a teacher or administrator is upset by student speech that occurs off-campus, it doesn’t give them the authority to formally discipline the student(s) involved.  To be sure, school officials ought to contact the parents of the offending party and explain to them the problems with such speech (and hopefully, the parents will take care of it from there).  Moreover, even though the school’s proverbial hands might be tied, the target of the harassing off-campus content has the ability to pursue civil remedies for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, or false light.  The point is that there are other ways to make sure the student responsible will be held accountable.

I have to say that I am concerned by the media attention given to these cases because I am afraid that schools will get the wrong impression and interpret these rulings as evidence that they cannot take actions in any incidents that occur away from school.  And this is simply just not true.  In all cases they have the right to take informal action (calling parents, talking to the students involved, expressing dissatisfaction with the behaviors, an extracurricular sanction such as a temporary ban from participating in a sport or club, or capitalizing on the teachable moment by educating the school body about appropriate discourse).  If they can demonstrate a clear link to a substantial disruption at school, they can definitely take more formal actions.  Schools generally get into trouble when they respond with knee-jerk formal reactions (long-term suspensions or expulsions) without carefully considering all of the facts of the case.

In short, students do have the ability to engage in free speech, but when that speech significantly interferes with the school’s ability to provide a safe and secure learning environment for its students, it falls within the reach of a school’s disciplinary arm.  These issues are discussed in more detail in our book and a paper we have forthcoming in the journal Preventing School Failure.  We also have a fact sheet that details more of the legal and policy implications of these and other rulings.

I was in Naperville, Illinois about two weeks ago for a cyberbullying summit sponsored by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.  The audience was comprised of select stakeholders in education, law enforcement, and technology industry.  The most relevant companies and constituencies were there.  Attorney General Lisa Madigan was on hand to kick the event off with some opening remarks.  Michelle Collins from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) followed with some general comments about cyberbullying and sexting and highlighted some of the efforts of the NCMEC in online safety education and prevention.  Next, I participated in a panel of experts along with Hemanshu Nigam from MySpace, Andrew Chaulk from the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, and Nancy Willard from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use.  We each provided a short introduction to our background and initiatives, then opened it up to the audience for questions and discussion.  As expected, it was a great discussion.

During lunch, Sarah Migas from the Illinois AG’s office described their efforts to educate youth, parents, educators and others about online safety issues.  In the afternoon we all were broken up into smaller groups to discuss in depth a particular scenario.  My group (Go Red Team!) discussed a sexting case from a few months ago.  We brainstormed possible prevention and response solutions and then presented our analysis to the larger group as a whole.  All in all it was a great event.

It is essential to bring all of these players together on a regular basis to develop a coordinated community response to cyberbullying.  Having pretty much everyone at the table really made for some interesting discussions.  The Illinois AG’s office is very much ahead of the curve with respect to these issues.  Stay tuned for more great resources from this group in the future.

An interesting controversy has emerged in the last couple of weeks over the word “meep.”  What does meep even mean?  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  In fact there are numerous and varied definitions of, and uses for, the word meep.  The most frequent use among adolescents, it seems, is to replace an inappropriate word with meep, as in “What the meep!?!”

So the recent controversy emerged when students at Danvers High School in Massachusetts threatened to disrupt the school environment by muttering, yelling, and collectively spewing the word meep during class time.  Danvers Principal Thomas Murray was tipped off about the planned disruption and preemptively threatened to suspend students who spoke the word or showed up to school with the word printed on clothing.  This, of course, incited folks from around the country to contact Mr. Murray to express their dissatisfaction with this seemingly ludicrous policy.  To be sure, the courts have ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”  That said, school officials do have the right to restrict speech and/or discipline students for speech or behavior that results in (or has a high likelihood of resulting in) a substantial and material disruption of the learning environment.  In this case, I think it is clear that the students involved were in fact planning a substantial disruption.  So, it doesn’t matter that the speech involved wasn’t really even a real word.

When I was in middle school, my classmates and I started humming in English class.  The teacher was getting pretty upset by this and was walking around the classroom trying to identify the offending party.  When he went to one side of the classroom, students in the other side would start humming.  When he moved to the other side, the other students stepped up and continued the humming.  Clearly, the act of humming is not obscene or otherwise generally subject to discipline in any environment outside of the school.  But at school, if it causes or threatens to cause a substantial disruption, it can (and should be) stopped.  In our case, the teacher refused to administer our planned quiz until the humming stopped.  It didn’t, so we all failed the quiz.  To this day I have a hard time identifying prepositions!

This is an important case because as much as I agree with everyone that restricting the use of a nonsensical word is in itself nonsensical, it is necessary that school administrators have the ability to maintain an appropriate, civil, and safe learning environment at school.  Educators need the support of parents and other community members when they take actions to ensure an appropriate school climate.  This is especially true since many forms of relational aggression, including cyberbullying, are often more subtle and therefore may not be automatically identifiable as something warranting intervention.   At the same time, they also need to be held accountable when their policies or practices cross the line of being overly restrictive.  In the case of meep, from what I have seen, I think they were being reasonable in their efforts to prevent a disruption from occurring.  What do you think?  Is Principal Murray going too far with this?

My colleagues and I have been discussing the phenomenon of sexting in great detail recently, in light of the actions of two Texas school districts.  Before the beginning of this new school year, the Houston Independent school district (one of the largest in the nation) and the Dallas-Fort Worth school district banned sending sexually-explicit photos or messages over cell phones.  Some argue that this action is paternalistic, outdated, tyrannical, and even possibly unconstitutional.  Others applaud the decision, which reflects that administrators are finally treating this matter seriously.

Personally, I’m glad that the district is focusing in on the problem, but I’m not sure if this policy will actually be useful as students tend not to be deterred by heavy-handed rule-making.  I also don’t want its presence to take the place of purposed educational efforts to teach students about the responsible use of technology.  This sometimes happens when laws or policies are implemented as a way of quickly “dealing” with an issue without understanding its fundamental causes.

When giving presentations, I talk a lot about the need to change prevailing social norms regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable in the minds of youth.  I feel that our prevention and response efforts are going to be less than ideal and fruitful if we cannot effectively counter what society and the media are hammering into the minds of adolescents.  If the dominant message our kids are hearing is that sex and sexuality lead to popularity and celebrity status with very little (if any) public or personal fallout, youth will continue to push the proverbial envelope and the line between right and wrong in this area will be increasingly obscured.  Maybe that’s fine - maybe that’s part of our inevitable march forward into modernity.  But maybe it portends more problems than we’re going to be able to handle.

I was talking to a school administrator yesterday…and she posed a question that I couldn’t clearly answer because it doesn’t seem there is a clear answer.  So I wanted to see if any of our readers had some thoughts about it.

If a parent comes to you (you as an educator in the school system) and says that their child is being anonymously cyberbullied by someone from school, and their child is being affected at school because of it - and you do your investigation and find out the identity of the bully (and that it definitely is someone from school) - do you have to keep the identity of that bully private because of FERPA?  What if the parent demands to know who it is, arguing that such information could help that parent better protect the child in the future?  Furthermore, if the parent of the victim adamantly demands to know what the school is doing to specifically discipline that bully and address the issue, do you have to share that information - or can you just say that your school is dealing with the problem and the parent should let you know if it continues?  How exactly does FERPA play a role in these situations?

We’ve covered this issue a couple of times before on this blog, but given the interest I thought I would respond to some of the comments that have been posted and provide some insight gained from discussions I have had with folks over the past few months.  Some people have suggested that students have effectively no right to privacy in schools.  On its face, this is patently false - students do in fact have *some* privacy rights in schools.  That said, the rules are different in schools than in other public places.

All Americans are protected against “unreasonable” searches and seizures (4th Amendment), and what can be classified as “reasonable” varies depending on the context.  In schools, educators can generally search student property if (and only if) they have a good reason to believe that evidence exists therein which will reveal a violation of school policy.  If that evidence is found, the offending student may be subject to an administrative sanction by the school (e.g., detention, suspension, etc).  For example, if a credible student tells a principal that another student at school has a phone in the classroom that includes the answers to the algebra exam, then a search may be allowable given these circumstances.

This ability to search can be contrasted with that of law enforcement, who are required to abide by a higher standard.  School (or other) police officers must have probable cause that evidence of a crime exists in order to conduct a search of property.  To be clear, mere suspicion is not enough for law enforcement officers.  They must be able to articulate to a judge that probable cause existed (either before the search is conducted or after at trial).  For example, if a credible student informs a school resource officer (a sworn police officer) that another student has a gun in his or her backpack, clearly the officer would be able to search the backpack.

If we apply these principles to the issue of cell phones in the classroom, we know that educators or law enforcement officers can in fact search a cell phone under some circumstances.  Either way, there has to be some articulable level of knowledge that the cell phone contains evidence of a violation of school policy or criminal law (depending on who is performing the search).  In the opinion of many, simple possession of the phone in the classroom, while in itself a violation of school policy, does not provide license to search that phone by anyone.

Always remember that neither Sameer nor I are attorneys, and so this should not be interpreted as legal advice.  Furthermore, these are very complicated issues that cannot be adequately covered in a short blog posting.  There are many exceptions to the basic principles outlined above.  As always, consult an attorney who specializes in school and/or privacy law.  Even they, however, often disagree as to how these laws and court rulings can or should be interpreted.   Case law and precedent are currently being formed as schools and courts wrestle with these issues.  If you are aware of any incidents that have gone to court related to this topic, please pass them along so that we can analyze and distill what can be learned from them.

In this recent story from the West Coast, a 15-year-old high-schooler named Arielle was suspended for two days after surreptitiously capturing video on her cell phone of her chaotic algebra class.  Apparently, the situation was horrible with the teacher unable to control the students, who were participating in paper-ball fights, smoking cigarettes and marijuana, and acting out in other ridiculous ways.  Arielle attempted to inform administrators about the problem, but nothing seemed to change.  So, she attempted to document the madness, and this video was anonymously sent by her friend to the superintendent.  This led to the school punishment, as such videorecording violated the state education code.

This reminds me of the Requa v. Kent (2007) court case.  There, multiple students were involved in the covert recording, posting, and disseminating of video footage depicting and criticizing their teacher’s hygiene, organizational habits, and interactions.  The footage in this case was set to music and edited into a montage, and was done in a way that was crass, offensive, and mean-spirited.  The courts ruled that students *should* have the right to critique the performance and competence of their teachers - and that this right should not only be tolerated but encouraged.  However, doing so in an immature and offensive way was deemed unacceptable, and disrupted “the maintenance of a civil and respectful atmosphere toward teachers and students alike.”

I personally am disappointed with the school district’s decision in the current case.  Arielle informed administrators that her class was basically a joke, but the situation largely remained the same.   She was being denied an equal opportunity to learn in a public school funded by the government and thereby mandated to provide an environment where she and her fellow students felt safe and comfortable.  So, Arielle sought to document what was going on in an attempt to open some eyes and bring some much-needed change.

I think it is weak to blindly point at a policy and claim that privacy rights of the teacher and other students were violated through the cell phone video recording.  I think blanket disciplinary decisions when it comes to youth and technology at school are unwise, because each of these cases are highly unique in their motives, context, use of technology, and ramifications.  I hope that the suspension is overturned, because the policy was probably intended to  prevent adolescent mischief.  Arielle’s videorecording was used to blow the proverbial whistle on an out-of-control situation, and not done in an inappropriate manner.  I also think that this never would have (and never should have) happened had administrators listened to Arielle in the first place when she voiced her concerns.  I definitely messed around in some of my high school classes, but never to this extent, and never in a way that compromised everyone’s ability to learn.  This situation is unconscionable.