Bullying

Hazing and bullying continues to be an issue in Juneau schools, as evidenced by a recent report released by the superintendent. The district already has strict policies in place to punish such behavior. What else can be done to address the issue?

The policies need to be followed through on, so we need uniform enforcement and people need to understand what the policies are and know what the consequences are. I think what we also need to do is increasingly engage students in coming up with solutions. When talking to students, the overwhelming majority of students don’t support hazing in the schools and I think are, in many ways, in the best position to help us have incremental change in improving the situation, making it clear that amongst their peers, that there is no tolerance for hazing. That’s a dimension that with increased inclusion of students in that issue, I think we can make some progress. The hazing issue unfortunately has been around since I was a student and it’s something that is going to take a big effort on the part of not just the administration but also engaging others if we’re going to make it go away.

Like any other policy, is it working? What does the data show us? Does the policy need to be reviewed and re-evaluated. If we, we being our district, our school board, our community, feel that policy and the regulations related to it are not working, the outcome isn’t the one anticipated, which is of course reduce or eliminate bullying in this case, then that policy and the attached regulations and then the discipline grid driven by that policy should be reviewed with public comment and then modified to address our needs.

Bullying is a form of abusive behavior, of disrespectful behavior to our kids. It really has to be addressed I think at all levels. Having consequences and having significant consequences is certainly a piece of it. I think also having a culture within our schools that really nip it as much as possible, programs that support respectful behavior and behavioral intervention, which we actually already have quite a few of in our schools already. It really is about an entire walk of life, it’s about what’s going on at home, what’s going on extracurricular activities, what’s going on in the school. I think every opportunity that we have to support that at every venue is critical.