Passing this along from the Times-Daily. Every parent and educator should be aware of this!
Bully law takes effect
Alabama is among the most recent of 44 states to pass an anti-bullying law, which will go into effect Oct. 1.
Until now, there haven't been any legal repercussions from bullying and it's an issue the state has long needed to address, said longtime educator Lisa Moses, of Florence, who said bullying is one area addressed in another new piece of legislation known as Taylor's Law. Under that law, a student's behavior at school, including bullying, can delay the student from acquiring a driver's license.
"Bullying has too long been ignored on the school level and has somewhat been accepted with a 'boys will be boys' attitude," Moses said. "Kids need to be able to report these things anonymously, but they don't trust that it will be kept quiet and they're scared."
Moses said schools have a duty to see that bullies get the help they need to change their behavior.
"Research shows that bullies have a much higher risk of having a criminal record," she said. "We're just as responsible for helping those kids."
In 2007, nearly a third of students ages 12 to 18 reported having been bullied during the school year, according to data on more than 55 million students compiled annually by the National Center for Education Statistics.
That's up from as few as 1 in 10 students in the '90s, though bullying experts point out the rising numbers may reflect more reports of bullying, not necessarily more incidents.
Of the states that expressly ban bullying - primarily prompted by a rash of school shootings beginning in the late 1990's - few measures have identified children who excessively pick on their peers. And few offer any method for ensuring anti-bullying policies are enforced, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.
The issue came to a head in April when 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera committed suicide at his Atlanta-area home after his parents say he was repeatedly tormented in school. District officials denied it, and an independent review found bullying wasn't a factor, a conclusion his family rejects.
Regardless, Georgia's law, among the toughest in the nation, still would not have applied: It only applies to students in grades sixth to 12th. Herrera was a fifth-grader.
Alabama's law covers grades pre-kindergarten through 12th. The sponsor of the bill, State Rep. Betty Carol Graham, D-Alexander City, said the new Alabama law was three years in the making and grew out of the rise in suicides among youth in the state and nation.
"Home and school should be the two safest places in the world for children, and Alabama didn't have a policy in place to assure that in schools," Graham said. "Not only is that unbelievable, it's unforgiveable."
Graham said there could be more legislation added to the law in the future. "I'm not bowing out of the process now that the law is passed. This Legislature will stand ready to make any changes or additions as needed. We believe in it that much."
Florence Middle School Principal Bill Griffin has been a proponent of anti-bullying policies for years. He said the intimidation factor is key to bullies being successful. Teaching students to speak up for themselves and tell someone in authority about incidences of bullying is the hard part.
"The most important word in a bully's vocabulary is 'snitch' and he or she operates strictly by that student's silence," Griffin said. "We have to empower other students, too, to speak up on behalf of those being bullied, to come and tell us.
"Yes, we have an obligation as educators to be vigilant and watch for bullying, but we have to get students to talk to us. Communication is key."
After Herrera's death in Georgia, other parents came forward to say their children had been bullied and that school officials did nothing with the complaints, rendering the state's law useless.
"There is a systematic problem," said Mike Wilson, who said his 12-year-old daughter was bullied for two years in the same school district where Herrera died. "The lower level employees, the teachers, the principals, are trying to keep this information suppressed."
Only six states - Montana, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, North Dakota and South Dakota - and the District of Columbia lack specific laws targeting school bullying, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most states require school districts to adopt open-ended policies to prohibit bullying and harassment.
"The states themselves can't micromanage a school district - but they can say to a school district, 'Look, you have to have consequences,' " said Brenda High, whose Web site, Bully Police USA, tracks anti-bullying laws across the nation and who advocates for strict repercussions for bullies. The Washington state-based advocate's son, Jared, was 13 when he committed suicide in 1998 after complaining of bullying.
"It needs to be written into the law that bullying has the same consequences as assault," she said. "The records and such need to be kept so that if the child is a chronic bully, they - after so many instances - will end up in an alternative school."
Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735 or lisa.singleton-rickman@TimesDaily.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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