Beginning September 2011 our schools implemented New Jersey's new law governing Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (P.L. 2010 Ch. 122). Our schools take the safety, security, and emotional well-being of all students very seriously. The school district prohibit all acts of harassment, intimidation, and bullying.
Each school is required to have an Anti-bullying Specialist, as outlined in the new law. The Anti-bullying Specialist's responsibilities include chairing the School Safety Team, leading the investigation of any reports of harassment, intimidation, or bullying, addressing situations involving bullying, and reporting on the investigations to administration.
Harassment, intimidation or bullying means any gesture or written, verbal or physical act that is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or a mental, physical or sensory disability, or by any other distinguishing characteristic, that takes place on school property, at any school-sponsored function or on a school bus and that a reasonable person should know, under the circumstances, will have the effect of harming a student or damaging the student's property or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm to his or her person or damage to his or her property; or has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students in such a way as to cause substantial disruption in, or substantial interference with, the orderly operation of the school.