Educational CyberPlayGround ®

K-12 SCHOOLS Bullies

HIDE TEACHER Corporal Punishment WRONGDOING FROM STATES

RESOURCES THAT PROVIDE GUIDANCE
FOR MAINTAINING SAFE SCHOOLS

The United States is the ONLY Industrialized country
in the WORLD to ALLOW Corporal Punishment in School.

empty rhetoric

"zero tolerance"

Why PUNISHMENT Won't Stop a Bully Punitive discipline for bullies can be counterproductive

Students who break the rules or otherwise displease us are subjected to suspension, expulsion, detention, enforced isolation ("time-out"), loss of opportunity to participate in enjoyable activities, and so on. Making children suffer for what they've done is often defended on practical grounds, but I've been unable to find any evidence to support the claim that punishment makes schools safer or leads the children who have been punished to become more ethical or responsible.
SEE

IS YOUR SCHOOL SAFE?

Every year over 250,000 students are hit at least once by educators in US public schools.

THE U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of public schools to administer corporal punishment to students in 1977. The new federal data shows that most states decline to use the option, as Alabama is one of just 21 states to report any paddling in any public school. Alabama is one of just 15 states with a state law that explicitly allows for corporal punishment. Another 29 states specifically ban the practice.

While no studies exist showing improvement of student achievement after corporal punishment is banned, many studies show the negative impact paddling has on children's attitudes toward and achievement in school.

2016 Why did Alabama paddle 19,000 students in one school year?
Across Alabama public schools, nearly 19,000 students were paddled in the 2013-2014 school year, according to newly available data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The count is of individual students and does not indicate how many were paddled more than once. Unlike in most of the developed world, Alabama law explicitly allows adults to administer corporal punishment, and education leaders in Alabama find no problem with paddling in schools.

Who Is the Bully?

Heaviest hitters in the South Of the 21 states that paddled in 2013-2014, a dozen are in the South. And when it comes to frequency of paddling, seven of the top ten heaviest hitters are also in the South. Alabama lands at number three in the nation for percentage of students who are paddled, behind Mississippi and Arkansas. In Alabama, federal data shows 18,749 students were paddled in 2013-2014. That's about 2.5% of all students in Alabama.

Some American teens are forced to trade sex work for food.
Teenagers - often overlooked by policymakers focused on children aged zero to five - missing meals, making sacrifices and going hungry, with worrying long-term consequences. The findings raise questions over the legacy of Bill Clinton's landmark welfare-reform legislation 20 years ago as well as the spending priorities of Congress and the impact of slow wage growth. Evidence of teenage girls turning to “transactional dating” with older men is likely to cause particular alarm.

2015 According to data from the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), over three million students are suspended or expelled every year. At the event, the agencies released new maps based on the CRDC data, illustrating out-of-school suspensions to help educators and communities understand the extent of this practice. The maps clearly demonstrate how Southeastern districts have the highest rates of out-of-school suspensions in the nation and students with disabilities are widely and frequently suspended:

Percent of students who have received one or more out-of-school suspensions by district -- and data table.

Percent of students with disabilities who have received one or more out-of-school suspensions by district --map data table.

The agencies also shared new resources to assist school leaders in their efforts

Addressing the Root Causes of Disciplinary Disparities: An Educator's Action Planning Guide

Rethink School Discipline: Resource Guide for Superintendent Action

On July 27, the Justice Department is launching the National Resource Center for School Justice Partnerships, which will serve as a training and technical assistance portal for juvenile courts, schools, law enforcement agencies, and others to support reform efforts at the local level. And, in the coming weeks and months, the Education Department will use social media events, blogs, and other approaches to engage the field about new tools and resources to help communities. For more information about the Administration's work on school climate and discipline, visit the Rethinking Discipline web site.

 

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2011
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, examines crimes occurring in school, as well as on the way to and from school, and presents data on safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, and principals. The report covers topics such as victimization, bullying, school conditions, fighting, weapons, and availability and student use of drugs and alcohol. One significant finding: the total crime victimization rate of students at school declined from 43 victimizations per 1,000 students in 2009 to 32 per 1,000 students in 2010.

Where the states stand on corporal punishment:

LEGAL to beat kids = States with the LOWEST IQ POINT In the US

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
New Mexico
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Wyoming


Nineteen states reportedly allow corporal punishment in schools, according to the Center for Effective Discipline.

NOT legal = smart states

Alaska
California
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Dakota
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
WashingtoN
West Virginia
Wisconsin

After spanking of teen girls, Texas school board gives official OK

Paddling, which is allowed under Texas law and school policy. In Springtown, Texas, voted to allow students to be paddled by employees of the opposite gender if their parents give written permission. The board's previous policy permitted only same-gender paddling. No one really argued with the idea of corporal punishment; at issue was the question of who gets to administer it, specifically can an adult male swat young girls? When a male vice principal hit Santos on her buttocks with a paddle, she said, she developed welts so severe that her mother thought she had been burned and blistered. Thousands of students still take their licks in Texas schools


Would you like to organize the effort in your state? Info@StopHitting.org E-mail us: State Contacts

RALEIGH -- North Carolina remains one of the few places where a student can be beaten with a paddle by school personnel without parental permission. Those personnel have statutory immunity if they inadvertently injure a student during such beatings. Last month the state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to affirm the rights of parents to participate in the school discipline process. Under House Bill 442, parents would be given an opportunity to say that their children cannot be beaten at school and that other forms of discipline should be used. On Wednesday, the Senate will vote on HB 442. Unbelievably, the vote is expected to be very close, and there is a good chance that our senators will deny parents the right to protect their children from being beaten by school personnel. <snip>


2011 Corporal punishment ban approved in Rockingham County
North Carolina
joins 69 other NC districts in banning corporal punishment, the infliction of pain -- usually by paddling or whipping. North Carolina is one of the only places in the developed world that still allows Corporal Punishment in schools. The United States stands alone in industrialized countries that allow CP and NC is one of only 20 US States that allows Corporal Punishment. State law prohibits the use of corporal punishment on students with disabilities. Jill Wilson, the school board's attorney, has noted about a third of students in the district are covered under that designation.
Rockingham County Schools' policy allows principals, assistant principals and teachers to use “reasonable force” on children. The policy does not define what corporal punishment is but does require a principal or assistant principal be present when it is administered and that parents are notified of the punishment with a written explanation. The school district's policy also requires principals to keep a record of the incident but does not require the principal to report it to the district office. That makes it difficult to say how many times corporal punishment has been administered in schools in recent years.

SAFE SCHOOLS
= SAFE WORLD

No Child Left Behind Act, each state must define a "persistently dangerous" school and allow parents to transfer their children out of them.

FYI: Each state establishes its own definition of persistently dangerous.

Federal crime reporting requirements were established for Higher Ed: colleges and universities in 1990 under the "Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990," later formally named the Clery Act.

No such federal law exists for K-12 schools. And there is no indication that anyone in Congress or the education community plans to create such crime reporting requirements for our nation's elementary and secondary schools.

A directory of 21 state school safety centers, and a list of 7 characteristics of safe schools: leadership, high academic standards, service for all kids, a well-balanced safety plan, comprehensive strategies, community partnerships, and teacher training and resources.

BULLIES AND CHARACTER EDUCATION

TERROR IN SCHOOLS BY SCHOOL STAFF

Are you in fear of violence in your school?

Students Who Care enables students to report their worries to prevent school violence.
Someone being too much of a bully?
Are you aware of threats made against your school?
Use this Reporting System to Keep your school safe!

The U.S. Department of Education has sent a letter to schools, colleges and universities about bullying. According to the letter, schools could be violating anti-discrimination laws if they fail to handle instances of ethnic, sexual or gender-based harassment.


"Dear Colleague," letter outlines legal obligations to protect students from various forms of harassment. The letter also provides examples of harassment and illustrates how a school should respond in each case, according to the Department of Education. The White House and Department of Education also announced the next steps to address bullying and harassment in schools, with a conference planned for early next year to raise awareness of the tools available to prevent it.
Some student misconduct that falls under a school's anti‐bullying policy also may trigger responsibilities under one or more of the federal antidiscrimination laws enforced by the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

The statutes that OCR enforces include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 19641 (Title VI), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 19722 (Title IX), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 19733 (Section 504); and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 19904 (Title II). Section 504 and Title II prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. School districts may violate these civil rights statutes and the Department's implementing regulations when peer harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, or disability is sufficiently serious that it creates a hostile environment and such harassment is encouraged, tolerated, not adequately addressed, or ignored by school employees.6 School personnel who understand their legal obligations to address harassment under these laws are in the best position to prevent it from occurring and to respond appropriately when it does. Although this letter focuses on the elementary and secondary school context, the legal principles also apply to postsecondary institutions covered by the laws and regulations enforced by OCR.

Rhode Island: Easton Public Schools Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan First Draft: October 25, 2010

REPORT SCHOOL CRIME:

Every State has their own forms to fill out

and ways to compile information.

School Crime Facts and how they weasel out of reporting them.

Ohio's largest school districts investigated dozens of teachers for victimizing students last year but disciplined relatively few, even when allegations were proved. The state rarely learned about the wrongdoing that schools discovered. Districts showed that they regularly acted as maverick detectives and disciplinarians by handling problem teachers on their own, sometimes even after a state law went into effect in March that required them to report when teachers misbehave.
Classroom surprises: An alarming number of Ohio educators get into trouble for sexual behavior involving students. District missteps: School systems often fail to notify the state or one another of allegations of teacher misconduct. "confidential" by the state. Off the radar: Gaps at the district and state level allow some educators to escape punishment for wrongdoing.

In a unanimous decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that school districts are responsible for stopping bias-based harassment of students "Much like employees in a workplace, students have the right to attend school without being subjected to repeated taunts from other children," the court said. Its ruling addressed a case brought years ago by a student "who complained he was slapped, punched and repeatedly taunted [for years] from the time he was in fourth grade by classmates who perceived him as gay."
The unanimous decision, based on New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination, gives pupils in the state greater protection from "student-on-student" harassment than their peers nationwide.
It said a school district may be found liable if it knew about a "hostile educational environment" and failed to take reasonable action to end it.

"Students in the classroom are entitled to no less protection from unlawful discrimination and harassment than their adult counterparts in the workplace," Chief Justice James Zazzali wrote in the opinion.
New Jersey Online http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1172123393202441.xml&coll=1.

Human Rights Watch and ACLU issued a report on 8/20/08 titled "A Violent Education" to government officials with recommendations to Immediately Abolish Corporal Punishment in Public Schools, which cited U.S. Dept. of Education statistics for 2006 where public schools reported disciplining over 200,000 children by hitting, spanking or similar means for such minor violations as chewing gum or violating school dress codes. Parents/guardians are urged to express their wishes in writing to their child's school board and teachers if they do not want their child hit by educators at school.

Schools - Why is Everybody Picking on Me?
What Karate Teachers Teach Warriors.

  1. READ School Bullying PDF
  2. HOW WE STOP BULLIES PDF
  3. School Bullies and Safe Schools How to handle Cyber Bullyies.
  4. Character Education - Teach Tolerance

Make sure your school district's computer use policy includes cyberbullying in the list of unacceptable uses of district equipment.

  1. Schools often keep state in the dark. The biggest districts typically fail to report teacher discipline to the Ohio Department of Education. 11/ 2007
  2. If your district imposes disciplinary consequences for off-campus behavior, notify students and parents of this fact in your student code of conduct and other communications.
  3. Consider training administrators on these issues, including the fact that courts generally are not impressed by the mere fact that off-campus website expression might be offensive or controversial.
  4. Consult your school attorney on issues of discipline for off-campus conduct, especially where there might be free speech issues.
  5. Consider educational options, such as teaching students about the responsibilities that come with thepower of the Internet and teaching parents about ways to make sure they know what their children are doing online
  6. Where We Learn school climate
  7. SAFE SCHOOLS - Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS)
  8. Izadi on Oklahoma Text of School Bullying Prevention Act: bullypolice.org see 2004 Oklahoma State Department of Health report on bullying and NSBA
  9. AMA - H1N1 CRITICAL ILLNESS Rapidly; Predominantly Affects Young
  10. Croyle overview EEOC guidelines and resources on sexual harassment
  11. Ken Rigby and Bruce Johnson's research document bullying at schools; children serve as passive bystanders to bullying. Learn why they don't they intervene and when it's appropriate for them to do so.
  12. Grasmick on Maryland 2006 Safe Schools Reporting Act
    Report on Bullying and Harassment in Maryland Public Schools:
  13. Anne Arundel County announcement to parents of bullying survey
  14. Anne Arundel County harassment or intimidation (bullying) reporting form
  15. ADDRESSING DEGRADING TREATMENT & ABUSIVE DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOLS A report by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) shows that middle and high school students in New York City and Los Angeles are frequently ignored and mistreated in their classrooms, and subjected to harsh discipline policies that punish, exclude and criminalize students.
  16. INDICATORS OF SCHOOL CRIME AND SAFETY: 2005
    A new report examines crime occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. It presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population from an array of sources. Major findings include: Improvements have occurred in student safety. The violent crime victimization rate at school declined from 48 violent victimizations per 1,000 students in 1992 to 28 such victimizations in 2003. Even so, violence, theft, bullying, drugs, and weapons are still widespread. In 2003, students ages 12-18 were victims of about 740,000 violent crimes and 1.2 million crimes of theft at school. Seven percent of students ages 12-18 reported that they had been bullied, 29 percent of students in grades 9-12 reported that drugs were made available to them on school property, and 9 percent of students were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Less than 1 percent of students reported serious violent victimization (such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault).
  17. American Association of School Administrators (AASA) Safe schools
  18. Center for Disease Control (CDC) School Associated Violent Deaths Fact sheet about school shootings and school-related violence
  19. Keep Schools Safe (National Association of Attorneys General and National School Boards Association) http://keepschoolssafe.org/
  20. National Conference of State Legislatures http://www.ncsl.org/
  21. Center for the Prevention of School Violence http://www.ncsu.edu/cpsv/
  22. Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV)
    http://www.colorado.edu/Research/cspv/
  23. National Center for Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/
  24. Public Agenda http://www.publicagenda.org/
  25. U.S. Department of Education
    http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/OSEP/earlywrn.html
    http://www.ed.gov/offices/OESE/SDFS/
  26. Join Together
  27. Hands without Guns
  28. SERVE
    The U.S. Regional Educational Laboratory for the Southeast, 84-page safe schools publication, Reducing School Violence to assist teachers, school principals, district administrators, parents, students, and others in creating safe environments where learning is the primary focus.
    The book covers all major facets of school violence reduction, including establishing a safe environment, creating prevention strategies, forming a crisis management and intervention policy, tracing the risk factors of violence, and implementing national, state, and local school safety initiatives and issues.
  29. ConsumersGuide.org A special report on school safety This report is beneficial not only for teachers and administrators; it includes tips for parents and students. According to Michael E. Smith, Public Information Officer for ConsumersGuide.org, "Although this report was written for school safety, many of the same principles apply to workplace safety, as well safety in general. This report offers helpful information for everyone." The school safety guide is based on the work of an independent panel of experts in the fields of education, law enforcement, and mental health.
  30. The Ophelia Project's school and community-based services are not a "quick fix" for the problems our children face today. Our mission focuses on long-term cultural change, which can be achieved by standing up against destructive social norms that perpetuate the cycle of covert aggression in children, youth and adults.

    We believe that violence occurs on a continuum, with something as seemingly harmless as eye-rolling on one end and school shootings and suicide on the other. The Ophelia Project focuses on the low end of the violence continuum by targeting relational aggression - destructive behavior that is intended to hurt someone by harming their relationships with others. Without prevention or intervention efforts, relational aggression can inflict major psychological damage on all people: children, youth and adults.

  31. Disclosure of Education Records Concerning Registered Sex Offenders

  32. Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 PDF, which established "comprehensive standards for sex offender registration and notification" across all 50 states.

Freedom from Harrassement

Legal Advice For Teachers who are harrassed by administrators

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. FIRE
A nonprofit educational foundation devoted to free speech, individual liberty, religious freedom, the rights of conscience, legal equality, due process, and academic freedom on our nation's campuses.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

U.S.: Corporal Punishment and Paddling Statistics by State and Race States Banning Corporal Punishment

Mississippi 2008-09 school year, reports 57,953 cases of corporal punishment in 110 of the state's 152 school districts, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.

ECS Reports on Corporal Punishment



ODAN - Corporal Mortification The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the Male Numeraries. Sleep on boards laid on top of the mattress.

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Ludhiana Stories Corporal punishment in schools by teachers seem to be on the rise with more and more cases of frequent beating at the hands of the male staff of school.

House OKs anti-bully bill, rejects corporal punishment ban
House OKs anti-bully bill, rejects corporal punishment ban were brutally paddled by a male AP for some small, and in one case, first time infractions.

Experts: Spanking Harms Children, Especially Girls
Corporal punishment is legal to varying degrees, for different causes and up to While another male administrator watched, the paddler first caressed her

Silence of the lambs Cover Story
Corporal punishment in schools is taken for granted as an excuse to enforce society and the problem is the lack of male involvement in such issues.

Two Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) teachers have been suspended Two teachers suspended for paddling six male students The vast majority of IPS schools does not allow corporal punishment, and Superintendent Duncan Pat

Corporal Punishment - Page 3 - Teachnology Teacher Forum Corporal Punishment High School. I'm a little disturbed with the idea of a Middel aged , male principal bending my 14 year old daughter over his knee

The Invisible Boy #3 Prevalence: A Many Sided Story However, if we add corporal punishment, suicide, community and school-based It quickly becomes apparent that the stories of many types of male victims

QUOTATIONS ABOUT CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN (SPANKING) quotations on the topic of corporal punishment, spanking of children. bullet, "I have yet to see a repeat male delinquent that wasn't raised on a belt,

JSTOR: Corporal Punishment and the Politics of Indian Reform
Corporal punishment was not a new issue when Collier became involved with it .. that matrons regularly used male employees to whip unruly Indian girls.

How I Joined Teach for America—and Got Sued for $20 Million by When I talked to them—they were all experienced male teachers—they heatedly To define as “corporal punishment” the mere physical separation of two

Lords Hansard text for 16 Jun 1998 (180616-15) She was caned by a male deputy headmaster in the presence of another master. As we know, corporal punishment in state schools had eventually to be

SPARE THE CHILD: Although the application of corporal punishment may take less than a minute . the teacher is right," said one of her thirteen-year-old male classmates.