New Jersey law is about to turn childish, mean behavior among school kids into a major event via its new law called the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights. And, in a story that sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit designed to make fun of government bureaucracy, we learn about the ridiculous maze of compliance requirements. From the New York Times:
This summer, thousands of school employees attended training sessions on the new law; more than 200 districts have snapped up a $1,295 package put together by a consulting firm that includes a 100-page manual and a DVD.
At a three-hour workshop this month, Philip W. Nicastro, vice president of the firm, Strauss Esmay Associates, tried to reassure a group of newly named antibullying specialists and coordinators gathered in a darkened auditorium at Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
“I know many of you came in here saying, ‘Holy cow, I’m going to be dealing with 10 reports a day because everything is bullying,’ ” he told the audience, some of whom laughed nervously.
Afterward, Meg Duffy, a counselor at the Hillside Intermediate School in Bridgewater, acknowledged that the new law was “a little overwhelming.” She said cyberbullying increased at her school last year, with students texting or posting mean messages about classmates.
The law also requires districts to appoint a safety team at each school, made up of teachers, staff members and parents, toreview complaints. It orders principals to begin an investigation within one school day of a bullying episode, and superintendents to provide reports to Trenton twice a year detailing all episodes. Statewide, there were 2,846 such reports in 2008-9, the most recent year for which a total was available.
Bullying has always existed and it will continue to exist. When kids do it, they should be disciplined quickly and firmly. This New Jersey law is the classic over-reach based on the faulty premise that government intervention and new laws are the solution to a problem.
