Home  News Local News Broward schools anti-bulling policy
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Broward schools anti-bulling policy |
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Written by Dr. Garth A. Rose
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
In response to a Florida’s Legislature measure passed earlier this year, the Broward School Board has adopted an anti-bullying policy. The measure required school districts in the state to introduce anti-bullying policies at Florida public schools by this December. The Broward School District is the first Florida school district to put in place such a policy.
Bullying of students by other students has been a problem in Florida schools for years, and has on several occasions resulted in bodily harm to students. Some years ago a student at a Cooper City high school was killed by his peers in a bullying incident, in a high profile case which resulted in the making of the movie, “Bully”.
Velma Dias, a mother of three students who attend Piper High school in Sunrise, says her eldest son, who is small in stature, has grown to hate school because he has been often bullied by boys much bigger than him. Because of bullying incidents at South Florida schools, parents have been demanding that the school boards in the region’s school districts develop rules and regulations to ban the practice.
The Broward School Board had started to put in place an anti-bullying policy prior to the passage of the state’s legislation. The district’s policy defines bullying as “systematically and chronically inflicting physical hurt or physical distress.” In addition to the usual bullying practices of teasing, shoving and physical intimidation, the district has extended bullying practices to include threats and intimidation made via the Internet. The policy also includes bullying by students of adult employees at the schools. The reports state that once a student has been reported to be using bullying tactics the schools will begin tracking that student’s behavior to look for a pattern of abuse. Preventive measures will include peer counseling, parent conferences and guidance counselor referrals.
It has been learnt that that the Florida Department of Education is to use Broward’s anti-bullying policy as a model for the state’s other school districts.
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