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In an effort to communicate more with parents of bullying victims, Washington County Public Schools this year began sending out letters at the end of its internal investigations.
Executive Director of Secondary Education Rick Akers said the resolution letter was created in response to parents who said steps weren’t taken quickly enough or at all following a report of bullying, harassment or intimidation.
The form includes various outcomes, including that the administrator found that all or some of the named offender(s) have bullied, harassed or intimidated said child; the allegation could not be substantiated; or, while the harassment allegations could not be substantiated, the child was found to be involved in a conflict or dispute with the offenders.
Akers said victims are contacted twice following the investigation to confirm if the bullying has stopped before the letter is sent to their parents.
If the same alleged offender bullies the child again, Akers said parents should call the school and additional corrective action will be taken. If a different child is doing the bullying, a new form must be completed.
“The process does not end until the bullying stops, period,” he said.
Bullying numbers were last presented to the Washington County Board of Education in April 2018, stating there were a total of 240 reports of bullying in the 2016-17 school year, which was the most incidents reported since state law required county school systems to begin tracking such data in 2005.
Several parents of county students have shared stories with Herald-Mail Media saying they don’t believe the issue is being taken seriously enough by school administrators.
“The school makes every excuse possible,” said one mother who claimed not to have been told about the nature of a threat toward her son until three days after the incident. “It’s not fair to parents to sit and wait.”
Another mother said she removed her daughter from WCPS after her daughter was incessantly picked on at lunch by the same group of girls.
“I want to put her back in, but I feel like nothing is being done,” she said. “(The bullying forms) do nothing. ... I honestly feel like they have not protected my child.”
Akers said when he or Jana Palmer, executive director of elementary education, are contacted about a situation, it often ends up being a “disagreement over the definition of what bullying really is” or parents not accepting their child’s part in an incident.
According to the WCPS bullying, harassment or intimidation reporting form, bullying is defined as “a pattern of behavior when a person repeatedly uses power in an intentional manner, including verbal, physical or written conduct of intentional electronic communications against one or more students.” The form also includes cyberbullying, harassment and intimidation definitions.
Incidents are often found to be mutual conflicts, as opposed to bullying, Akers said, so when the alleged victim also gets reprimanded, the parent feels like his or her child was punished for reporting bullying.
“When a parent calls me or calls Jana and says, ‘They didn’t do anything with it,’ we can see exactly what they did,” he said. “I can tell you it’s a very rare instance that I find they’re not following the process.”
Due to confidentiality laws, WCPS is not allowed to disclose much of its investigations, according to Akers, but principals or vice principals fill out forms noting to whom they spoke, what their investigation consisted of, why the incident occurred and if any corrective actions were taken. The forms are kept on record at the school and the WCPS Center for Education Services and are “very thorough,” Palmer said.
Akers and Palmer said once a bullying form — which can be filled out by students, parents, teachers, administrators or counselors — is submitted, investigations start within the next day if immediate action is not possible.
“Most real bullying and bullying cases are solved very quickly and ended,” Akers said. “The lingering ones that I see on TV and read about in the paper typically were never bullying in the first place.”
“When we’re made aware of it, we handle it if it’s a legitimate bullying situation,” Palmer said. “If it’s a back-and-forth situation, that’s when it becomes a little more entangled.”
Consequences for students found guilty of bullying range from a phone call to parents and a warning, to suspension and, in the most severe and rare cases, Akers said the student could get moved to an alternative school.
On the elementary level, Palmer said the bully might change classrooms, but the victim can request a change.
Secondary schools pose more problems, according to Akers, as changing one class has a bigger impact on a student’s schedule. He said a school wouldn’t change a victim’s schedule as a method of fixing a bullying problem.
Social media has added new layers to the bullying issue, since students can harass one another from their phones 24/7.
Akers said parents often call about things said or done online, but WCPS is limited in its authority unless the incident happened on a school-owned device, at school or at a school-sponsored event. Most issues in the last few years have started online, he said, and frequently spill over to school.
“This is not new to human nature,” Akers said. “What’s new is social media.”
Students now are accustomed to recording much of their lives, and that includes taking video of bullying incidents, which leads to other problems, according to Akers.
Students are not allowed to record on school property without permission, he said.
“If someone videotapes someone being bullied, I’m pretty sure the victim of the bullying would feel like that person is intensifying the effects of the bullying by videotaping it and sharing it,” Akers said.
Parents of Washington County Public Schools students with questions or concerns about bullying can reach Executive Director of Elementary Education Jana Palmer at 301-766-2988 or Executive Director of Secondary Education Rick Akers at 301-766-8604.
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