Month: May 2013

101/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 5 of 7

This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Banning Bullying: Take II

If 01-080 stood as the Colorado Legislature’s attempt at showing its recognition of bullying as a problem in the State’s public schools, House Bill 11-1254 (11-1254) was its attempt at refining that recognition and taking measures to solve the problem. Sponsored by 35 legislators (5 of whom had also sponsored 01-080), the new bill filled in a number of the holes left by the State’s initial definition of bullying.

Seeing the initial requirement of schools to implement a policy regarding bullying, 11-1254 expanded its encouragement to schools to at minimum incorporate the “biennial administration of survey of students’ impressions of the severity of bullying in their schools  and character building.” It also suggested the formation of a team at each school to advise schools administrations “concerning the severity and frequency of bulling incidents that occur in the school.”

The bill also required schools not only to set forth a system of consequences for perpetrators of bullying, but to implement consequences for anyone who “takes any retaliatory action against a student who reports in good faith an incident of bullying” as well.

It was not enough to have a policy regarding bullying. The Legislature wanted schools to begin asking questions as to the need of that policy and what experts and community members might suggest schools do about their findings. Unfortunately, these were not requirements, as each of these actions was only “encouraged” according to the bill’s language.

From a practical standpoint, such wording is not surprising. It allows for the appearance of crafting policy that improves the reporting mechanisms within schools and protects students, while avoiding the creation of unfunded mandates. Logic dictates that only those schools with deeper pockets would be most likely to take the initiative to implement these suggestions.

The bill made simpler and more expansive the State’s definition of bullying as well. It included the electronic forms of bullying and extended bullying prevention to explicitly cover federal and state protected classes.  This expansion appears to have taken into consideration the Romer decision as well as state and national reports of suicide and violence against students who had been bullied as a result of their membership in these classes.

The bill also increased reporting requirements for schools. It added a report of incidents of bullying to the Safe School Reporting Requirements, moving from simply requiring schools to have a policy regarding bullying to holding schools accountable to the State. A paper trail would now be created to gather data in the interest of painting a clearer picture of the extent of bullying in Colorado schools. As helpful as this may seem, a review of 2011-2012 school and district reports from a handful of Colorado schools revealed few if any mentions of bullying incidents or any specific plan to prevent or combat bullying behavior.

Aside from refining previous work, 11-1254 also expanded the State’s official efforts to prevent bullying in its schools. The bill established the School Bullying Prevention and Education Grant Program. Charged with distributing collected funds to Colorado schools to aid “efforts to reduce the frequency of bullying incidents.” While 11-1254 did not allocate state funds to the creation of this program, it did allow for the securing of such funds through private and non-profit donations. Grant recipients would be required to use a portion of the allocated money to educate parents and schools’ local communities and implement the bill’s suggested actions.

Though the bill established a cash fund within the state budget for the operation of this grant program, it did not require the allotment of state monies to that fund. Additionally, it allowed for the acceptance of private and non-profit donations, but made clear that it was not requiring attempts at procuring such funds.

In short, the grant program required intentional inclusion of funding in the state budget or on the fortuitous goodwill of private organizations or citizens to begin its funding. Again, such a move gives the appearance of action on the part of the Legislature, but avoids the actual funding of that action.

If funding or lack of funding were the contingencies upon which the majority of the intended effects of 11-1254 relied, at least one portion of the bill was written without any funding entanglements. Filling in a missing component of 01-080, the new bill required the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) to “continually make publicly available evidence-based best practices and other resources for educators and other professionals engaged in bullying prevention and education.”

The CDE was also mandated to “solicit evidence-based best practices and other resources” from all relevant state education groups and post them online. One such agency was the School Safety Resource Center. The new bill expanded the mission of the Center to specifically include the gathering and dissemination of bully-related research in the interest of making it more widely available to all relevant education agents. This joined Colorado with only a handful of other states that included such best-practice requirements in their anti-bullying laws or policies.

Finally, reflecting the changing educational landscape between 2001 and 2011, 11-1254 laid out anti-bullying requirements for the states charter schools, many of which had not existed when the State first defined bullying. These requirements were the same in the letter and scope of the portion of the new law as it addressed regular public schools and ensured that all Colorado students attending any type of public school enjoyed the same bullying protections.

On the whole, 11-1254 moved Colorado toward a more comprehensive approach to lessening bullying occurrences within its schools by expanding its definition of bullying behaviors and explicit inclusion of students belonging to protected classes.

With a notion to help schools develop their best practices in bullying prevention, the bill also established a grant program for helping to fund that development, though it did not fund the grant program outright.

Still, despite its funding failings, the bill did prioritize bullying prevention efforts for the CDE by requiring the department to seek out, evaluate, and provide the state’s schools with access to the latest research best practices in bullying prevention.

100/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 4 of 7

This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Making it Safe-To-Tell

Standing on the initial 2001 bullying law and amid the work of the Colorado Trust, the Colorado Legislature made an important move in 2007 to make it easier for the victims of bullying and those witnessing bullying to speak up and alert authorities. Senate Bill 07-197 created Colorado’s Safe-2-Tell Hotline.  Based off of U.S. Secret Service reports that “in 75 percent of dangerous or violent incidents in schools, someone other than the attacker knew the incident was going to happen but did not report or act on that knowledge,” the hotline was an extension of the national Safe-2-Tell program.

The hotline was established “with the primary purpose of providing students, teachers, other school employees, and the community with a means to relay information anonymously…”

Though no mention of an intent to prevent or act as a reporting mechanism specifically for incidents of bullying was described in the establishment of the hotline, such benefits were listed in the enumeration of the successes of the national program. Indeed, it should be taken as a sign of increasing safety whenever an act of prevention is established by policymakers.

Perhaps it was for the best that bullying was not mentioned as some adults and youth could be unclear as to what constitutes bullying. The hotline leaves to the authorities the decision of whether an act is bullying or not and takes that responsibility out of witnesses’ and victims’ hands.

99/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 3 of 7

This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Colorado’s Trust in Anti-Bullying

Absent specific action by the Legislature and given the variance in school and district policies given the lack of specific guidance by SB 01-080, the grant-making foundation The Colorado Trust stepped in in 2005 with a four-year anti-bullying initiative that allocated $8.6 million to 45 grantees and 78 schools across 40 of Colorado’s 64 counties. Districts, schools, and community organizations receiving these funds reported reaching approximately 50,000 Coloradans through their efforts.

Arguably more important than the reach of the Trust’s initiative were its results. Through an independent evaluation that included surveys of approximately 6,000 student and 1,500 adults, focus groups with students, and in-depth interviews with grantees, the Trust’s Bullying Prevention Initiative (BPI) found positive results in reports of school context and culture as well as decreases in reports of bullying behavior following the enactment of its funded efforts.

From the Trust’s independent evaluation of BPI, several key findings were uncovered that stretched across grantees. Chief among these was the need for anti-bullying efforts to be integrated into the daily operations of learning spaces rather than as add-on or auxiliary programs that might be seen as in competition with other school programs. The Trust also found that anti-bullying efforts were most difficult in high school and that it “may be too late by then anyway” (2008). In the Findings Report, the Trust reported, “High school, however, grows more complex because bullying occurs below the adult radar – such as cyberbullying. Students also are less likely to ask adults to intervene unless they have trusted adults to help them” (2008, p. 4).

This finding is of particular interest for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the use of the term cyberbullying though online spaces were not included in the State’s initial definition of bullying. The finding speaks to the holes in the State’s attempt to protect its youth from bullying. Also notable is the research’s determination of the increased difficulty of alleviating bullying in students’ later years of schooling. While significant improvements in preventing bullying were reported across elementary and middle school populations, such shifts were more difficult in high schools.

Unfortunately, the Trust’s study concluded in 2008, so the ability to evaluate the possible persistence of the Initiative’s effects is impossible.  This leaves on the table the question of whether implementing the efforts that were successful in creating safer schools in the younger years could have the double effect of making older students safer as well. Later, this paper will examine those efforts found to be successful by the Trust and other similar organizations.

Finally, while claims of causation are doubtful, the Trust found a positive correlation between schools with below-average instances of bullying and above-average CSAP scores. “Almost 33 percent of schools below the average frequency of bullying in the first year of the initiative were above the average CSAP score, while only 14 percent of schools reporting a higher frequency of bullying were above the average CSAP score” (p. 7). This finding is not surprising. One would expect students attending schools where they experience less fear for their safety would have greater access to learning and achievement. Still, such a finding is helpful to those policymakers whose decisions are driven by test scores rather than a more holistic understanding of students.

In 2009, the Colorado Trust ended its anti-bullying grant program, and turned its funding to other programmatic goals it saw as aligned to its mission. Still, in the five years of funding and research, the Trust was able to gather information that painted a clearer picture of bullying in Colorado schools than had previously existed and added to the burgeoning corpus of research dedicated to understanding how to prevent and reduce bullying in schools.

98/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 2 of 7

This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Colorado’s Opening Volley

While it was certainly present within the state prior to legislative mention, bullying was first mentioned in by the Colorado Legislature in 2001 with the passage of Senate Bill 01-080 (SB 01-080). This bill revised state statute 22-32-109.1 (2) by adding a new subparagraph which defined bullying in Colorado as “any written or verbal expression, or physical act or gesture, or a pattern thereof, that is intended to cause distress upon one or more students in the school, on school grounds, in school vehicles, at a designated school bus stop, or at school activities or sanctioned events. The school district’s policy shall include a reasonable balance between the pattern and the severity of such bullying behavior.”  This new subparagraph also instituted a requirement of schools’ Safe School Plans in that they would now need to include “a specific policy concerning bullying prevention and education.”

This initial legislative effort to address bullying can be characterized as a first try ample in good faith but insufficient in action. In its analysis, the USDOE stated, “[L]egislation that defines prohibited bullying behaviors, and specifies graduated and substantial sanctions, will often require extensive implementation procedures, such as reporting requirements, investigation, and procedures for implementing the sanction (e.g. expulsion)” (xvi).

Colorado’s 2001 measure defined the behaviors to be understood as bullying, but left specific sanctions to school or district level decision-makers with the only guidance that there should be a plan and it should include considerations of patterns and severity of bullying behaviors.

As it went into effect August 8, 2001, SB 01-080 made bullying a legally identified offense in Colorado schools and required schools to include plans to keep their students safe by preventing and educating them about bullying.

It did not identify means for or require the reporting of bullying incidents in schools, take steps to provide Colorado youth with an avenue to report bullying, or make any mention of the inclusion of research-based methods of bullying prevention.

Perhaps most disconcerting was the lack of any mention of protected classes within this initial bill, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Romer v. Evans in 1996 (517 U.S. 620) which allowed for the inclusion of protected classes in such legislation. Specifically of interest here were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth.

According to the results of the 2011 School Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), “56% of students who were harassed or assaulted in school never reported it to school staff, and 62% never told a family member about the incident. Among students who did report incidents to school authorities, only 34% said that reporting resulted in effective intervention by staff” (p. 1).

Such bullying reflects not only a hostile environment for these students, but the unwillingness to report such incidents to their families exemplifies the double isolation of this group of students as well. Doubtless, other instances of feelings of depreciated safety exist among students in other protected classes, but no statewide school-based statistics are available at this time.

In short, SB 01-080 took steps ostensibly intended to reduce bullying and increase student perceptions of their safety within Colorado schools, but did not take advantage of the Legislature’s full power nor did it move to help schools and districts understand specifics of what they could do to protect students.

Learning Grounds Ep. 017: Paul Oh on Civic Education, Student Voice and FanFic

The National Writing Project’s Paul Oh took some time to sit down at the DML Conference in Chicago to discuss his work on bringing student voice forward toward a more democratic education.

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97/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 1 of 7

This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Why This Matters

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center, from 2005 through 2010, the state of Colorado saw 256 suicides of teens between 15 and 19 years old. While the state does not track reported causes of suicides, a 2011 United States Department of Education (USDOE) “Analysis of State Bullying Laws and Policies,” suggests school violence and other negative physical and mental consequences are “often linked explicitly or by inference to bullying.”

While not all of Colorado’s teen suicides are likely at least partially linked to bullying, the USDOE analysis specifically cites Colorado’s 1999 Columbine High School shooting as “the first of many high-profile incidents of violent behavior that appeared to implicate bullying as an underlying cause” (ix). The analysis goes on to cite several youth suicides across the country as “linked to chronic bullying” (ix).

Given the tragic national and state implications of inattention to bullying, it is increasingly important to understand anti-bullying legislation and related actions within the state of Colorado as a means for understanding the issue’s status in the state and as a parallel for efforts around the nation.

96/365 School Requires a Surplus of Goodwill

As much as we like to believe that each day teachers show up in the classroom, they are starting with a blank slate and that the fund of goodwill that was depleted through one altercation with a student or another was replenished overnight, this isn’t true.

Being a teacher, being a student – these roles carry memory with them. The student who constantly disrupted class after repeated requests to remain on task will be remembered. The teacher who failed to take the time to ask how a student was on the day when the world felt like the world was collapsing will be remembered. The deleterious effects of these actions will be felt by those who experienced them the next time a quiz grade teeters between two letters or the effort available for a class project can be expended on this class or the other.

The people in schools and classrooms remember how the people in these spaces make them feel.

Because of this, the schools we need must stock themselves with an overabundance of goodwill.

It’s a difficult proposition, but it is not impossible. Within the realm of control for schools, it can only be the adults who are expected to remind themselves of the goodwill necessary to help the children in their care navigate the seemingly impossible task of growing up.

One piece, of course, is mindfully enacting an ethic of care. The reciprocity within such an approach to teaching means that adults who reach out to their students with a drive to create a caring relation will find new energy when that care is recognized by students. In simple terms, we can increase our capacity to care for children by caring for children.

Operating with an abundance of goodwill also means mindfully avoiding playing a “gotcha” game with students. Gotcha games in schools never teach the lessons their perpetrators believe they are teaching. The teacher who has an assignment due by a certain hour on a certain day and refuses to accept the work of a student turned in after that deadline – no matter if it is minutes, hours or days – will point to an important lesson about time management.

The lesson internalized by students, though, is hardly ever, “Oh, I must remember to turn things in on time.” Through the emotions of hard work rejected, students are more likely to learn that it matters more when they do the work assigned to them rather than how well. The lesson becomes, “I should turn this in now even though I’ve not completed it or made something of which I can be proud.”

Gotcha games are improper assertions of power in the classroom. Yes, teachers are within their rights to play such games, but that does not excuse such actions.

The second depleter of goodwill or evidence of its absence is the evocation of the “real world.”

These teachers excuse their hard-nosed approach to “accountability” by explaining they are not accepting late work from an eighth grade student because “when they get into the real world, their boss won’t accept excuses for why projects are not completed.”

This is possibly true. Also true along these lines of reasoning are the idea that this hypothetical job will happen when students are expected to pay rent, worry about health insurance, and file taxes among other responsibilities. They will also be able to vote and consider finding other employment if they want to escape an employer who takes such a hard-nosed stance.

Rarely, do teachers who invoke the “real world” do so in a way that includes the democracy and choice their students will find in the real real world.

Eighth grade is real. It is difficult and confusing, and it is real. Deadlines should exist, and time management is important as a skill. So too, perhaps even more so, is the giving and generating of goodwill. Given the choice between the citizen who has learned to submit things on time and the one who has learned the value and importance of goodwill, the one who understands goodwill is surely the higher aspiration of schooling.

Maintaining goodwill is difficult. It requires vigilance, commitment, and rejuvenation. Maintaining goodwill is one thing other than difficult. Maintaining good will is necessary.