Sen. Wiger: Anti-Bullying Legislation is Needed to Protect Our Kids
A column from Sen. Chuck Wiger of District 43.
In 2012, Governor Dayton formed a task force on the prevention of school bullying. Bullying was a problem before 2011, but the Governor’s task force shined a light toward an ongoing problem.
Back in 2009, I offered anti-bullying legislation, which passed the House and Senate, but was vetoed by Governor Tim Pawlenty. This year, however, I’m optimistic we will pass legislation based on the task force’s recommendations from last August. Those recommendations, and the current bill, are a result of months of public testimony and deliberation.
They are designed to ensure a safe and supportive school environment for every student in Minnesota and to maximize their learning potential.
The task force recommended a complete overhaul of the limited policy against bullying by repealing current law and implementing new definitions, reporting, training and procedures on bullying. Furthermore, the task force cited an urgency to implement these new policies to provide for the health and safety of students.
Under current law, school districts are required to have a policy against bullying and a plan for dealing with it, but the laws don’t define bullying, and they don’t describe what the plan should be or explain who should be protected. We need a state model to ensure every student in Minnesota is protected.
A 2011 U.S. Department of Education survey found Minnesota to have the weakest laws in the country against bullying, harassment and intimidation, with only 37 words outlining the components of an anti-bullying policy. A 2010 study by the state departments of Education and Health found 13% of students reported being bullied once a week or more frequently. Current law requires school districts to have a policy against bullying but doesn’t specify prohibited conduct based on a wide range of characteristics. We need better guidance from the state.
With this bill, districts will be able to decide for themselves whether to adopt local policies against bullying that conform to the requirements under this legislation or to adopt the state model policy. It is important that every student across Minnesota be provided with an educational environment that is free from bullying, and the state should set that tone.
We must establish a safe school environment that is conducive for learning. If children are constantly threatened and bullied, they are not able to concentrate on learning.
It’s time to repeal these ineffective laws, and replace them with one clear, comprehensive law that protects all students from bullying and harassment at school.
Please contact my office with any questions, concerns and comments in anti-bullying legislation or any other topic. My phone number is 651-296-6820 and my email address is sen.chuck.wiger@senate.mn. Or you can stop by and visit me in my office. I’m located in room 205 in the Capitol, 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. St. Paul, MN 55155.
Julie Hartmann
10:53 am on Friday, March 8, 2013
Thank you Sen. Wiger for your important work on this legislation. I am new to Minnesota since July 2012 and have been a school administrator for the past 21 years. I know how important it is for school to have appropriate methods of identifying and dealing with incidents of bullying. I fully support having anti-bullying programs in place and strong policies that deal with incidents appropriately and quickly. I would like to send caution about these policies and requirements. They need to be developed (with some general statewide expectations), but they need to fit the needs of the school and community. Therefore, I believe in flexibility. I have heard about the challenges some states have imposed on school districts in other states that went gun-ho on requirements and policies. In these situations, the anti-bullying state policies can have the opposite effect for a school to want to identify a situation as "bullying" because the requirements become so paper labor intensive that the school administrators avoid the "b" word as much as possible. I would be happy to provide you input from the perspective of a seasoned principal if you need it. In my previous principalship, I implemented the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, but there are many other resources and approaches that do this well. My contact information: Dr. Julie Hartmann - Valley Crossing Community School - 651-702-5771; Julie.Hartmann@nemetro.k12.mn.us
fb.com/WCwatchdog
5:45 am on Sunday, March 10, 2013
Thanks for the post Julie. I agree. Statistics will show the legislation works... but, like you said, it really doesn't because what happens is the teachers tend to avoid the write ups due to the extra work.
It's no different than police officers not enforcing illegal immigrant laws... You can make all the laws you want but unless you monitor the inforcement it's worthless... and there's no way the teacher's unions are going to approve bully prevention standards if they can barely keep Minneapolis and St. Paul graduation rates above 50%.
Jassen Sanders
4:50 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
I am glad and really thankful that somehow, I had stopped the bullying thing with my sister. I was looking for some great answer for that problem and I found out about this great application called safetrec. I downloaded the app on my sister's iPhone and there I can monitor where and what is happening with her. Whenever she presses the panic button, she will be on a conference call with us, even with the 911 dispatcher whenever there's a real time emergency. Help is on the way! After we subscribed to that service, I can see some improvements with my daughter. I can feel that she is not anymore afraid to go party with her friends. thanks to safetrec! you can also try them out. http://safetrec.com/
fb.com/WCwatchdog
5:04 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
Why not just call your parents and skip having the ap? oh yeah, because if a kid calls their parents while getting bullied they're going to get bullied even more! It's sad but true.
yomammy
7:08 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
just make this "law" FLEXIBLE. Not some silly-A$$ Zero tolerance crap like they have with some things.