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Anne Bubnic

Curbing Cyberbullying in School and on the Web - 0 views

markfranek.wordpress.com/...the-virtual-schoolyard

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shared by Anne Bubnic on 05 Sep 08 - Cached
  • Many of the most egregious acts of cyberbullying do not take place during school hours or on school networks, a situation that presents a dilemma for public school administrators: If they punish a student for off-campus behavior, they could get hit with a freedom of speech suit.  If they do nothing, students may continue to suffer and school officials theoretically could get hit with failure to act litigation. For school administrators, it appears to be an unfortunate “catch-22.” For lawyers, it’s a “perfect storm,” pitting freedom of speech advocates against the victims of cyberbullying and schools that try to intervene. There are no easy answers in this arena, few laws, and no well-established precedents that specifically deal with cyberbullying.
  • “School administrators can intervene in cyberbullying incidents, even if the incidents do not take place on school grounds, if they can demonstrate that the electronic speech resulted in a substantial disruption to the educational environment.”
  • These cases illustrate not only a lack of precedent on cyberbullying cases, but also a dilemma for school administrators on how to handle cyberbullying.  “There are few laws that address how to handle cyberbullying, and many schools don’t have an internal policy to deal with cyberbullying that takes place off-campus,” offers Deutchman.  “It may take an unfortunate and tragic event on school property to get more schools to consider tackling electronic behavior that originates off campus.  It’s only a matter of time before a cyberbully, or the victim of cyberbullying, uses deadly force during school hours.”
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  • So, what should schools do in the meantime?  First, school officials should establish a consistent internal policy (much like a crisis plan) and a team (minimally made up of the principal, school counselor, and technology director) to deal with cyber-misconduct. This team should fully document disruptive incidents and the degree to which the learning environment is affected. The principal should invite the cyberbully’s parents to review the offending material before considering disciplinary action. Most parents at this point will do the right thing.
  • Second, schools should educate children, starting in elementary school, about the importance of cyber-safety and the consequences of cyberbullying, especially on the school’s own network. These rules should be clearly posted in the computer labs and written in age-appropriate language. The rules should be sent home to parents each year—and they should be posted prominently on the school’s website.
  • Third, teachers should continue incorporating in their curriculum projects that utilize the web and other powerful new technologies. This probably won’t help schools avoid lawsuits; it’s just good pedagogy. It’s not surprising that schools that keep up with the latest technology and software—and employ teachers who care about the quality of online communication—report lower incidents of cyber-misconduct.
  • In addition, schools should update their codes of conduct to include rules that can legally govern off-campus electronic communication that significantly disrupts the learning environment. They should also assign enough resources and administrative talent to deal with students who engage in cyber-misconduct. One very big caveat: Disciplining a student for off-campus electronic speech should be done only as a last resort, and certainly not before seeking legal counsel.
  • Finally, schools should realize that not all cyberbullies need to be disciplined. Schools should act reasonably, responsibly, and consistently—so as to avoid the very bullying behavior they are trying to curb. Until the courts provide clear standards in the area of off-campus electronic speech for young people, these recommendations will go a long way in making schools a safer learning environment for everyone.
  • Anne Bubnic on 05 Sep 08
     
    Most school administrators have more than one story to tell about cyberbullying. They report that victims of cyberbullying experience low self-esteem, peer isolation, anxiety, and a drop in their grades. They note that victims may miss class or other school-related activities. Principals also point to recent high-profile cases where cyberbullying, left unchecked, led to suicide. In response, some schools have created new policies and curbed free speech on the school's computer network and on all electronic devices used during school hours. This article offers practical advice for actions schools can take to curb bullying, ranging from policy development to education.
Anne Bubnic

Student Bashes Administrators, Gets Disciplined - 0 views

www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx

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shared by Anne Bubnic on 05 Sep 08 - Cached
  • According to Doninger, the principal told her that Jamfest was cancelled because of the students’ action. The principal denied saying that. That evening, Doninger posted an entry on her personal blog in which she noted that Jamfest had been cancelled, referred to the district administrators as “douchebags,” and encouraged continued contact with the superintendent to “piss her off more.” The following day the event was rescheduled. Sometime later school officials
  • The appeals court found that it was reasonably foreseeable that Doninger’s posting would reach campus and that the posting created a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption within the school environment because the language used was offensive. It likely disrupted efforts to resolve the controversy, and the posting that Jamfest had been cancelled made it foreseeable that school operations might well be disrupted further.
  • There was no evidence of any disruption at school. The only disruption was to the principal and superintendent in responding to what was an impressive response to the student’s call for complaints. There was no indication in the record that the disruption interfered in any way with the delivery of instruction or in any way impacted student welfare. If administrators are not being appropriately sensitive to the interests of students or are engaging in other actions that cause concern, students clearly should have the free speech right to protest and to call for other students and community members to register their complaints. Inconveniencing school administrators under such circumstances should not be considered to constitute substantial disruption.
  • Anne Bubnic on 05 Sep 08
     
    A court case upholds administrators' rights to discipline a student who used derogatory language on a blog, but questions arise. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in May that a Connecticut school district that disciplined a student for vulgar and derogatory remarks made off-campus did not violate her free speech rights.
Anne Bubnic

Cyber Bullying - School Policies? - 0 views

www.asbj.com/...Cyber-Bullying.aspx

AUP ad4dcss cyberbullying school board

shared by Anne Bubnic on 09 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A punch in the eye seems so passé. Bullies these days are traveling in packs and using cyberspace to their humiliating messages online. Like the toughies of old, they are both boys and girls and they demand nothing less than total submission as the price of peace. It’s a jungle out there. For school districts, patrolling the hallways and adjacent grounds is just a start. In the 21st century, a new kind of vigilance is necessary—an expanded jurisdiction that serves to both stave off legal actions and ensure a safe and productive learning environment.
  • Today’s principals rely on district policy and practice to extend the presumed long arm of the law to off-campus incidents. Potentially, that could mean plunging headlong into the electronic frontier to rescue student victims and thwart cyberbullying classmates who thrive as faceless computer culprits.
  • A December 2009 study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society found that students on the receiving end report greater emotional distress, are more likely to abuse substances, and are more frequently depressed.
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  • The report concluded a child is more likely to face cyberbullying by fellow students than being stalked by an online predator. “Bullying and harassment are the most frequent threats minors face, both online and offline,” notes the Harvard report, Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies: Final Report of the Internet Safety Task Force to the Multistate Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States.
  • Bullying can take a variety of forms. Incidents have included stealing passwords, impersonating the victim online, fake MySpace or Facebook pages, embarrassing photos or information being revealed, threats, rumors, and more. And, bullying tends to magnify the longer it exists.
  • Students sometimes will cyberbully teachers or other school employees
  • In January, a federal court in Connecticut ruled that Regional District 10 was within its rights to discipline a student over an off-campus blog. Judge Mark Kravitz rejected Avery Doninger’s claim that the school violated her free speech rights when they refused to let her serve as class secretary or to speak at graduation because of words she wrote at home
  • According to the Hartford Courant, the school district won “because the discipline involved participation in a voluntary extracurricular activity, because schools could punish vulgar, off-campus speech if it posed a reasonably foreseeable risk of coming onto school property, and because Doninger’s live journal post was vulgar, misleading, and created the risk of substantial disruption at school.”
  • In Florida, a high school senior and honor student was accused of cyberbullying after she wrote on Facebook: ‘’Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met! To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred.’’ Katherine Evans, who was suspended for “bullying and cyberbullying harassment toward a staff member,” sued the charter school in December 2008. A final ruling is pending.
  • In a 2007 incident, 19 students were suspended at a Catholic high school near Toronto for cyberbullying a principal on Facebook. The students called the principal a “Grinch of School Spirit” and made vulgar and derogatory comments. While the U.S. Constitution does not necessarily apply in private school settings, the incident demonstrates that this kind of behavior can happen anywhere.
  • Districts should have a cyberbullying policy that takes into account the school’s values as well as the school’s ability to legally link off-campus actions with what is happening or could happen at school.
  • Anne Bubnic on 09 Apr 09
     
    Good article from AMERICAN SCHOOL on the policies that schools need to have in place to protect both students and teachers from cyberbullies.
Anne Bubnic

California Assembly Bill 86 - 0 views

www.assembly.ca.gov/...acsframeset2text.htm

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shared by Anne Bubnic on 12 Aug 08 - Cached
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  • Anne Bubnic on 12 Aug 08
     
    Existing law, the Interagency School Safety Demonstration Act of 1985, states that the intent of the Legislature in enacting its provisions is to encourage school districts, county offices of education, law enforcement agencies, and agencies serving youth to develop and implement interagency strategies, in-service training programs, and activities that will, among other things, reduce school crime and violence, including bullying. Existing law establishes the School/Law Enforcement Partnership and charges it with undertaking several efforts intended to reduce school crime, as specified,including bullying.

    This bill would specify that bullying, as used in these provisions,means one or more acts by a pupil or a group of pupils directed against another pupil that constitutes sexual harassment, hate violence, or severe or pervasive intentional harassment, threats, or intimidation that is disruptive, causes disorder, and invades the rights of others by creating an intimidating or hostile educational environment, and includes\nacts that are committed personally or by means of an electronic act, as defined.

    Existing law prohibits the suspension, or recommendation for expulsion, of a pupil from school unless the principal determines that the pupil has committed any of various specified acts, including, but not limited to, hazing, as defined. This bill, in addition, would give school officials grounds to suspend a pupil or recommend a pupil for expulsion for bullying, including, but not limited to, bullying by electronic act.

Anne Bubnic

Facebook, Take 2: Cyberbullying - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...book_take_2_cyberbullying.html

cyberbullying facebook social networking

shared by Anne Bubnic on 29 May 09 - Cached
  • I also asked them why they allowed certain girls to be on their friends list when they know that some of them will resort to this type of bullying, and most said because they felt they “had to.” This kind of pressure to allow “friends” on one’s site could also be considered a form of bullying, as they feel there may be consequences to shutting some out regardless of their lack of Internet etiquette.
  • As a public school principal, I can’t legally discipline a student for cyberbullying actions that take place outside of school that don’t result in bodily harm at school. However, when cyberbullying that has taken place outside of school becomes a school issue, as it did today, we must reserve the right to take action if the effects of outside cyberbullying threaten the safety or well-being of the student(s) in school, even if it hasn’t caused bodily harm…yet.
  • School officials have the authority to impose discipline if the speech has, or there are particularized reasons to believe it will cause a substantial disruption at school or interference with the rights of students to be secure. Three types of situations generally meet this standard - violent altercations, hostile environment for a student, significant interference with instruction.
  • Anne Bubnic on 29 May 09
     
    Our Acceptable Use of the Internet policy next school year will definitely not only address cyberbullying, it will include a clause that states something to the effect, "If cyberbullying outside of school becomes an issue in which a student feels threatened or unsafe in any way at school, the principal has the authority to discipline the cyber bully." It will give the school community the clear message that cyberbullying will not be tolerated and at the very least will give me a little leverage when I need it.
Anne Bubnic

Terror in the Classroom: What Can be Done?, Part 4 - 0 views

www.schoolcio.com/showArticle.php

ad4dcss cyberbullying legal schoolcio

shared by Anne Bubnic on 03 Sep 08 - Cached
  • A survey conducted by MSN United Kingdom found that 74% of teens as compared to 80% in this study did not go to anyone for advice when they were cyberbullied (www.msn.co.uk/cyberbullying, 2006). One reason some teenagers are reluctant to tell parents or adults is the fear of retaliation.
  • Many times parents don't get involved because they are afraid of invading their teen's privacy. Others may feel that as long as they have filtering software their teen is protected from negative material.
  • Parents need to be educated about cyberbullying- what it looks like, what the effects are and how to handle it. Rosalind Wiseman, educator and author of the best seller "Queen Bees & Wannabes", suggest parents consider the following: Use technology as an opportunity to reinforce your family values. Attach rules and consequences if inappropriate behavior occurs. Move the computer out of your child's bedroom and into the family room. Teach your child not to share passwords. Install monitoring and filtering software. Monitor your child's screen name(s) and Web sites for inappropriate content. If cyberbullying occurs, save and print out any evidence and decide whom you should contact for assistance.
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  • n Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). The court ruled that a student's right to free speech can be limited when the speech "materially disrupts class work or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others." The standard of "material disruption" set by Tinker is often referred to by the courts
  • Anne Bubnic on 03 Sep 08
     
    What Can Parents Do? Schools should start addressing students, parents and staff about the issues of cyberbullying. Students need to be reminded that what they do in cyberspace is not really anonymous. They need to know their behaviors and words are downloadable, printable and sometimes punishable by law. The courts have given some direction for schools dealing with cyberbullying. "School districts are well within their legal rights to intervene in cyberbullying incidents - even if these incidents were initiated off-campus - if it can be demonstrated that the incident resulted in a substantial disruption of the educational environment"
Anne Bubnic

City targets Web to dull bullies' barbs - 0 views

www.boston.com/...gets_web_to_dull_bullies_barbs

ad4dcss cyberbullying facebook legal article cybersafety disruption of school environment

shared by Anne Bubnic on 04 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Anne Bubnic on 04 Apr 10
     
    The calls began coming in Monday. A horrified guidance counselor, a teacher, and then a student lit up Boston's new antibullying tip line, telling officials about multiple Facebook pages that featured pictures of female high school students with derogatory and sexually explicit captions beneath them. Students and city and school officials say they have found at least 15 Facebook pages over the last few days that use obscene or hateful language to target female students, as well as a handful of male students, school administrators, and teachers at schools in Boston and surrounding communities. Boston officials have been scrambling to have the pages removed and have been meeting to figure out how to address the apparent cyberbullying and find the culprits. But as the offending Facebook pages come down, new ones go up. School officials and police are struggling to identify the perpetrators, who have been using fake names when they register with Facebook to create the pages. Police say they could pursue criminal charges if they determine that perpetrators have violated victims' civil rights.
Anne Bubnic

Tough Questions Linger in Wake of Bullying Tragedy - 0 views

www.aolnews.com/...19424278

ad4dcss cyberbullying facebook legal parents teen suicide disruption of school environment

shared by Anne Bubnic on 04 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Anne Bubnic on 04 Apr 10
     
    School bullying is nothing new. But since Prince's suicide, it has taken on a much darker significance, one that prosecutors are taking seriously. On Monday, criminal charges were brought against the nine students who allegedly led the harassment. And parents and school administrators in South Hadley are under intense scrutiny as well. They face tough questions about what happened to Prince and whether they could have done more to prevent her death.
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