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Schools

Comprehensive Anti-Bullying Policy Rolled Out at Moraga Middle School

Texts that request sexual favors. Facebook postings with malicious gossip. Put downs. Shoving. Bullying in the digital age is easy - and relatively anonymous.

In October of 2010, Heidi Felt, counselor at Joaquin Moraga Intermediate school, and JM principal Joan Danilson realized that the anti-bullying policies in place for the middle school needed upgrading. With increased media attention on suicides from cyberbullying, and statistics from the California Healthy Kids Survey and Felt's 6th grade survey supporting the continuing presence of the usual forms of bullying, they felt action needed to be taken.

An all-staff after-school meeting was held and a task force formed to address the issue. The six teachers, staff and administration created a full-fledged policy that addressed all forms of mistreatment. Danilson sent the policy to Bruce Burns, superintendent of the Moraga School District and rolled it out to staff, students and parents over the last few weeks.

“We are not getting rid of mistreatment,” said Felt. “It’s what we do with the mistreatment as a community. We’re building resiliency.”

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Teachers, the school librarian and the custodian all received training during a special session February 17, and students received additional training at the recent Respect All Differences (RAD) Day.

“Our schools are obligated to let students and parents know when a student has made a mistake,” said Felt. “We need to educate all players – the target, the bystanders and the aggressor.”

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The bullying policy is not only clear and comprehensive, it’s also a living document, Felt and Danilson explained, and it needs to be consistent. The new policy makes this possible, tracking not only aggressors, but also targets and types of mistreatment. It also provides a clearly defined policy of progressive consequences for aggressors.

Parents were invited to attend a Parent Education Night on the new policy and improvements, though the event was not well attended.

When asked about why cyberbullying – which often doesn’t occur on the school grounds – should be included, Felt said, “If it comes to the school, we have to address it.”

She told of one bewildered student arriving at her door with a sexually explicit text message from another student she hardly knows. “This student can’t focus in class, is upset and doesn’t know what to do," Felt said.

The JM anti-bullying policy is the first in the district to include cyberbullying. And it will continue to evolve its policy to address changes in the area and the tools to which students have access.

“We’re giving kids tools on how to cope,” Felt said. “We are at the ‘now what?’ stage. We have identified a group of students in all grades at JM to join our think tank. Bullying isn’t going away. We brainstormed – now what? We have a policy, but what can schools, staff and students do? The students came up with a great list of what to do to actively combat bullying.”

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