Tag Archives: school

Anthony Zeno v. Pine Plains Central School District

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in December 20, 2012 at 1:56 pm.

(13 votes, average: 4.15 out of 5)

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A new bullying case has emerged from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (New York) which demonstrates that schools could potentially be held liable for monetary damages even in cases where they do take steps to respond to harassment that occurs in school. The point this particular case makes is that a school response needs to be effective to be sufficient.

According to court documents, Anthony Zeno moved to Stissing Mountain High School mid-way through his freshmen year (in 2005). Very early on he was inundated with threats and subject to racial slurs from students at the predominantly white school (Anthony is half-white and half-Latino). When his mother reported the first incident to the school, principal John Francis Howe reportedly told her that: “this is a small town and you don’t want to start burning your bridges.” So the harassment continued. Anthony repeatedly reported incidents to the school and his mother contacted the District superintendent and school board. Nobody at the District level responded. In some cases individual students were warned and even suspended, but the behaviors continued.

The incidents escalated in his sophomore year with students threatening him in the cafeteria and on the football field. “Zeno is dead” and “Zeno will die” was scrawled on the school bathroom walls. In multiple occasions he was threatened with specific references to a lynching. Again, the school responded by suspending the students for individual cases and even moved one of the aggressors to another school. Principal Howe asked staff to keep an eye on Anthony.

Despite the racially motivated nature of the threats, the school’s Title IX compliance officer did not investigate the allegations (she is also responsible for enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race). During Anthony’s sophomore year, the school contracted with an individual to provide information to students, staff, and parents on bullying and harassment, but the program did not include any substantive discussion of racial discrimination. In his junior year, the school hired someone to train faculty and staff on racial diversity and stereotypes and to conduct student focus groups and surveys. No actual training was conducted that year however.

The incidents continued into his senior year. Though less frequent, they reportedly became more serious. According to the lawsuit, in one incident “a student called Anthony’s sister a ‘slut’ and threatened to kick Anthony’s ‘black ass.’” There was a fight and one of Anthony’s friends was choked to the point of losing consciousness.

Because of the daily harassment, Anthony struggled with his academic work and fell behind. He didn’t have enough credits to graduate with a full diploma so he settled for an “IEP diploma” which allowed him access to some community colleges but would make him ineligible for the military, trade schools, or more comprehensive post-secondary education. He didn’t think he could endure another year or two at that school.

In July of 2007 Anthony sued the school, alleging discrimination based on his race. He argued that he was denied educational benefits as a result of the racial harassment. The trial began in March of 2010 and a jury found that the School District had violated Anthony’s civil rights under Title VI and awarded him $1.25 million. A subsequent district court ruling reduced that award to $1 million plus attorney’s fees.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the earlier ruling, agreeing that the school was deliberately indifferent to the harassment that was taking place, even though punishment was meted out after most incidents. The court pointed out that victims “do not have a right to specific remedial measures” (p. 26), but noted that “the sufficiency of a response, however, must be considered” (p. 34). Even though the school District “suspended every student who was identified as harassing Anthony” (p. 33), the behaviors became increasingly severe. As such, the court agreed that the school should have done more.

What educators should take away from this ruling is that once they learn of harassment taking place, they have an obligation to do everything in their power to ensure that it stops. Simply disciplining the student who did the bullying, without following up to make sure that it actually stops and that the person targeted is safe, is not enough. Applying discipline and implementing new programming is only sufficient to the extent that the behaviors desist. Citing Wills v. Brown University the court stated: “[E]vidence of an inadequate response is pertinent to show fault and causation where the plaintiff is claiming that she was harassed or continued to be harassed after the inadequate response.” The jury in Anthony’s case found, and the appellate court agreed, that “the District’s additional remedial actions were little more than halfhearted measures” (p. 38).

Implementing a particular response without concern for its efficacy evidently is not enough to protect a school from a claim of deliberate indifference. Responses to bullying need to be targeted (focusing on the nature of the harassment), comprehensive (long-term recurring programming vs. a one-time brief presentation), and effective (the bullying has to stop or at least be reduced significantly in frequency and seriousness). Due diligence involves more than just applying an immediate response – it demands that the response move behaviors in the desired direction.

Tags: cyberbullying, policy, response, school.
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Most Cyberbullies Are Bullies at School

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in December 14, 2012 at 12:11 pm.

(15 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

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Technology has given students immeasurable opportunities to communicate with friends and collaborate on schoolwork. Of course it also allows those with ill-intent to use high-tech avenues as mediums to be mean. One question that we have been exploring is the extent to which technology has created a whole new class of bullies. Think about it: if I want to be cruel to someone else, but perhaps don’t feel comfortable or confident to do so at school, I may turn to the Internet. This may be because I am extremely comfortable with various social media environments, or because I need time to craft my ingenious hateful statement or brilliant plan to humiliate someone else, or because I would get beat up if I tried to do it in person, or because I would get caught easier at school.

I was recently looking at our 2010 data from over 4,400 middle and high school students who we randomly selected from one large school district to explore this question. What I found was that there were very few students who had reported that they cyberbullied others but who had not bullied others at school. Specifically, 34% of the sample had bullied at school only, 10% had bullied at school and online, but just 1.1% had bullied online only. So most of those who are doing the bullying online are also doing the bullying at school (90% of the cyberbullies are also school bullies).

Traditional and Cyberbullying (N=4,441)
Not a bully – 54.6%
Bully at school only – 34.4%
Bully online only – 1.1%
Bully at school and online – 9.9%

So what does this mean for how we should respond to cyberbullying? First, some educators have argued that if the behavior does not happen at school, there is nothing that they can do. While this perspective is incorrect, as we have pointed out on this blog before, the research shows is there is a high likelihood that a student who is involved in cyberbullying is also involved in bullying at school. Either way, educators should be involved in appropriately and reasonably responding to all bullying, no matter where it happens, if those behaviors inhibit the ability of students to learn and feel safe at school.

Second, the causes of bullying are likely similar irrespective of the environment in which the bullying takes place. That is, whatever causes a student to bully online will undoubtedly also cause them to bully wherever they are. As much as technology has made it easier to connect with others at any time and from just about any place, the trigger or primary opportunity for bullying still appears to come at school. It will be interesting to see if this might change over time. Most people we speak to often assume that cyberbullying is occurring with more frequency than traditional schoolyard bullying. Maybe that is because most of what we hear about in the news are cases of cyberbullying or because technology is so much more widespread among teens than ever before. The reality, however, is that most bullying is still happening at school.

In our sample, 7.5% of students had been cyberbullied compared to 25.8% who had been bullied at school (in the previous 30 days). And we are not the only researchers to have observed this. For example, the School Crime Supplement of the National Crime Victimization Survey added a handful of cyberbullying questions to their survey in 2009 and those data (the most recent available) showed that 28% of students reported being bullied at school while 6% reported being bullied “by electronic means anywhere.” As much as the conventional wisdom would suggest that cyberbullying is occurring with greater frequency than schoolyard bullying, it just isn’t (see also Bullying in a Networked Era: A Literature Review).

These findings do raise some interesting follow-up questions for additional study. For example, are there certain characteristics that are unique to the group of students who specialize in only one form of bullying? Are interventions that focus on reducing bullying generally also effective at reducing cyberbullying (or vice versa)? Are there certain features of schools (or web environments) that make them more or less inviting of different types of bullying? There is always so much more research to do…and we will keep working to do it!

Tags: bullying, cyberbullying research, response, school.
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Anonymous Reporting for Bullying and Cyberbullying Incidents

Article posted by Sameer in November 29, 2012 at 10:06 am.

(15 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

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Justin and I strongly believe in the value of anonymous reporting systems in schools. Based on our experiences working with students across the nation, we have found that they want to speak up and let adults know what is going on (both offline and online), but they are very nervous that it will end up backfiring on them. They don’t know who specifically to go to, they don’t want it to lead to them next being targetted, and they don’t want to be identified and considered a “tattletale” or “narc” or “rat.”

Students appreciate when anonymous reporting mechanisms are implemented and provided for them, and these systems greatly benefit educators who need to know what is going on outside of their immediate purview. In addition, at least 11 states require that schools allow anonymous reporting by students of bullying. These states have seen their value enough to formally compel their use.

I have been working with Assistant Principal Ryan Brock over at Lewis Middle School in San Diego, California for the last couple of years, and one of the reasons we’ve kept in touch has to do with anonymous reporting. I thought it would be encouraging for our readers to learn of his story, which we’ve featured below. Everyone seems to be looking for a “best practice” to help stem the tide of peer mistreatment and victimization; as you’ll see, this is one that truly seems to bear much fruit.

—–

The process of adding a bully report form to our school web site began during a talk given by Dr. Sameer Hinduja at the University of San Diego a couple years ago. Dr. Hinduja painted a picture of students that are dealing with interactions that they have not been prepared for and in many cases unable to proceed toward resolution. Our school, like every school is heartbroken but the all too often accounts given by children who say that aid came too late or that they felt compelled to change schools rather than deal with what feels like an impossible situation. In many cases, these middle school students do not have the background experiences to know how to handle a difficult situation and in a few cases do not have a support system at home.

It became clear that we needed to provide an anonymous means for students to report an incident that was available when they are available and accessible to all because the “Bully Report” drop boxes have been ineffective. The solution we chose was an online form on our school website. The form is not exactly anonymous meaning that it does record the sender’s IP address, but from a student’s perspective this does not seem to be a deterrent and no student has ever asked about that aspect of the submission process.

The form we use has provided a simple and effective means for students to report incidents that they are not comfortable reporting in person. We designed it to be simple but include the critical questions that would allow for documentation of a crime as well as remain comfortable for a student to complete. We shared the form via our weekly announcements, through a message sent home to parents and through assemblies. It has also become a common occurrence to ask a student to take their verbal account of an incident and redirect them to use the online tool. This allows for thoughtful reflection and documentation.

In the year since implementation of the form we have had around 144 submissions with around 3 false reports. While this has been a tremendous number of reports for a school of 1,100 kids we believe that the time spent in follow up and investigation is well worth the payoff of having student feel safe at school. In fact, the number of reports has been manageable and have also lead to more prevention than punitive action.

These reports range from online harassment in cases where students have sent threatening messages on Facebook to cases of students asking for money during our lunch period on a daily basis. The most typical submissions are reports of name calling or “he kicked me” during class time in which the student does not report the issue to the teacher. The majority of submissions have been legitimate instances where a student needed support in dealing with a difficult situation and require only a small amount of time to investigate and provide support. These forms of support include mediation between students who have had a disagreement, increased supervision during lunch periods to deter other students from demanding money, changing the direction of on campus cameras to observe acts of bullying during lunch or parent contact to notify families that their student has been sending threatening messages via Facebook.

A recent example of a report we received included a young man who reported the following:

1. I am a:
Student

2. During this incident I was a:
Victim

3. What is your name? (optional)
[No Answer Entered]

4. What grade are you in?
7

5. What is the name of the student you would like to report?
[Redacted]

6. If you do not know the name of the student, please describe the person.
[No Answer Entered]

7. Where did this incident take place?
In class

8. Please describe the incident.

[Redacted] has annoyed me and he always nocks down my backpack from the back of my chair anytime he walks my also he mocks me when i tell him to stop annoying me

9. Were there witnesses to this incident?
No

10. What are the names of the witnesses?
[No Answer Entered]

11. Please rate the severity of this incident from your perspective, 1 being minor incident but unacceptable to 5 being major incident, could result in retaliation or violence.
Severity: 3

12. Please describe the frequency with which this type of incident occurs.
On a regular basis

13. How do you feel about this incident or person? (Examples: they are annoying, I hate them, I want to hurt them, they don’t make me mad I just want it to stop…etc)
I hate him and all of his bully friends and feel as if I have to do something physicaly to them to stop this so if you don’t solve this it might just come to that

14. Did this or other incidents make you feel like harming yourself or others?
Yes

15. Would you like to speak with a counselor?
No

16. What else would you like us to know about this incident? (optional)
Stop this now him and his friends they all bully my friends ans I at lunch and it needs to stop now and if you guys can’t do anything it might just come to the worst. ps. If you find out who this is don’t say anything to me at all or I won’t be able to trust the staff and will have to solfe things myself

This was a clear case of bullying and an instance in which intervention could prevent a possible instance of violence. This report allowed the school a chance to intervene and stop this cycle of behavior and prevent a retaliatory fight or worse. Our approach with this issue was to share the report with the student and encourage him to reflect on the impact of his behavior. Like so many other aggressive students, this behavior stemmed from other students bullying him. To this day we give the student personal reminders to be considerate of others and to report further instances of bullying.

I would imagine that any reader who has made it this far is really attempting to make a decision about whether this approach is right for their school. To this person I would say that this approach is not only important but I believe that it is completely necessary. We have all been in a situation where we were caught between the consequences of calling for help and the consequences of suffering in silence. In most cases, this simple online tool offers a path to safety that does not include the consequences from either path previously available. As educators, we enter this profession motivated by our love for young people and our desire to see them succeed.

An example of Lewis Middle School’s Bully Report can be found here.

—–

Justin and I hope this has been helpful and even empowering to you, as you consider the value and utility of an anonymous reporting system for bullying incidents at your own school. We’d love to hear of your experiences and any feedback you’d like to give, and we also want you to know that we are here to assist in any way we can.

Tags: anonymous, prevention, reporting, school, teens.
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Amanda Todd, Cyberbullying, and Suicide

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in October 30, 2012 at 9:56 am.

(44 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)

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By now, most people are familiar with the Amanda Todd tragedy. The 15-year old from British Columbia, Canada posted a cry-for-help video on YouTube using note cards to detail the torment she endured from classmates and strangers in the wake of a revealing (topless) video chat photo being released to her Facebook friends and others by an extorting stranger. She got depressed and anxious and experimented with drugs and alcohol. She cut herself and had at least two previous attempts at suicide. People commented on her Facebook page that she should try harder to kill herself: “I hope she dies this time and isn’t so stupid.” Unfortunately, on October 10th, 2012, she did.

Many students have written out note cards and taken to YouTube to tell their story (Alye, Jessica, Kegan, Kate, and perhaps most famously, Jonah). These are often referred to as “If You Really Knew Me” or “secrets” videos and feature young people exposing their souls in a very public, but still somewhat private way. I mean, the reality is that most of these videos are viewed only a handful of times and very few have garnered as much attention as Amanda Todd’s has. My fear is that others who are struggling with the common (and not-so-common) trials that accompany the teenage years will feel that suicide is the only way to bring full attention to their struggles.

My heart breaks when I read story after story of teens who felt suicide was the only answer to their situation. Just a few days ago a 15-year old Staten Island, New York girl jumped into the path of an oncoming train (to her death) after apparently being “tortured” by other students. Earlier in the week she tweeted: “I can’t. I’m done. I give up.” Less than a month ago it was a 16-year old East Hampton, New York student who ended his life after being bullied, reportedly due to his sexual orientation. There are just too many of these horrendous stories to keep up with.

Research has shown that experience with bullying (whether as a target or bully) is linked to heightened risk for suicide. A recent review of 41 incidents that were reported in the media where cyberbullying appeared to be the cause of a teen’s suicide showed that experience with bullying was just one of many factors that likely led to the teen’s death. This finding is consistent with what we have found in our work over the years. In our paper published in 2010, we found a small, but statistically significant increase in risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts among students who were bullied or cyberbullied (and among those who did the bullying or cyberbullying). But the experience with bullying (in whatever form) explained only a small amount of the variation in suicidal behaviors. That is, there are other factors that we weren’t able to account for in that study that were also related to suicide. There are, to be sure, many challenges that teens are confronting on a day-to-day basis, and often these pile up to the point where some simply cannot take them any longer. In our paper, we concluded that “it is unlikely that experience with cyberbullying by itself leads to youth suicide. Rather, it tends to exacerbate instability and hopelessness in the minds of adolescents already struggling with stressful life circumstances.”

If you or someone you know is in such a place, please get help. Talk to an adult you can trust. Please. If you are the adult, connect with each of the students, children, or other young people in your life in a way that enables them to come to you in times of crisis. You could be their savior. Visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline website or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for emergency help. If only Amanda, or someone who cared about her, would have done the same.

Amanda Todd

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, school, suicide, youtube.
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School Climate and Cyberbullying: An Empirical Link

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in October 24, 2012 at 3:08 pm.

(12 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)

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Our latest book School Climate 2.0: Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Class at a Time argues that one promising way to prevent cyberbullying and other problematic online behaviors from occurring is to develop a positive climate at school where students feel safe and cared about. There is ample evidence to affirm the power of a positive climate in preventing a host of problems at school, including student and teacher victimization, delinquency, and disorder. We wondered if a positive climate at school could also serve as a protective factor in reducing involvement in cyberbullying, sexting, and other high-tech misbehaviors that largely occur away from school.

As a preliminary test of this hypothesis, we analyzed data from a random sample of approximately 4,400 middle and high school students from 33 schools in a large school district in the United States. We asked students to tell us their thoughts about the quality of the climate at their school and also asked them to report their experiences with cyberbullying. With regard to the quality of the climate, we specifically asked students to tell us the extent to which they agreed with the following statements:

I feel safe at my school.
I feel that teachers at my school care about me.
I feel that teachers at my school really try to help me succeed.
I feel that students at my school trust and respect the teachers.
I feel that teachers at my school are fair to all students.
I feel that teachers at my school take bullying very seriously.

Students responded to each of these questions using a 4-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (3). Scores from the six questions were averaged for each student, and each school was given an average score based on responses from a random sample of students in that school. School climate scores ranged from 1.41 to 2.16, and the three groups were created by looking at natural breaks, which placed roughly one-third of the schools in each group. Average climate scores for each group were low (1.55), medium (1.71), and high (1.90).

For cyberbullying, we used our standard measure which first defined cyberbullying as “when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like.” We then asked about nine different types of cyberbullying behaviors (including pictures, messaging, comments, etc.). We calculated the percentage of students who had been cyberbullied or who had cyberbullied others, by school, and aggregated the schools across the three different groups of school climate (low, medium, and high). As expected, we saw a clear relationship between the quality of the climate and the proportion of students who had experienced cyberbullying.

School Climate and Cyberbullying

As you can see from Table 1 (click here for a larger version of the chart), the better the quality of the climate, the fewer number of students reported experiencing (either as a victim or as a bully) cyberbullying. The students from higher climate schools also reported fewer sexting incidents. Our book goes into a lot more detail about the research and results, and provides numerous practical examples of ways to improve one’s school climate, so please check it out for more information.

It is important once again to acknowledge the preliminary nature of this research. We were only able to include 33 schools from one school district, and we want to encourage others to replicate this work with larger and more diverse samples. Ideally, scores of schools from around the U.S. (and abroad!) would be sampled and analyzed to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the nature of the relationship between climate and online behaviors. And we would be happy to assist others in these efforts. If you have any other questions about this or any of our other research, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, school, school climate, teacher.
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