Bullying has always been addressed under Mobile County Public Schools’ Student Code of Conduct. New language in a proposed update to the Code, however, adds a definition for what constitutes bullying and reaffirms the system’s commitment to eradicating it.
The board recently agreed to the changes, and the Code is now available for input in a series of public hearings. The first was held last week, and another is scheduled for Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in the board room at MCPSS’ Central Campus.
The new statement reads: “It is the policy of the Mobile County Board of School Commissioners that all of its students have an educational setting that is safe, secure and free from harassment and bullying of any kind. The board will not tolerate bullying and harassment of any type.”
The definition of bullying adopted by the board comes from Dr. Dan Olweus, a research professor of psychology from Norway, who has spent decades researching the issue.
It reads: “A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.”
Bullying can come in many different forms: physical and verbal bullying, being threatened or forced to act, being excluded or gossiped about, having property taken or damaged, racial bullying, and cyberbullying.
Terrence Mixon, MCPSS Executive Director of Student Support Services, said the new language underscores the system’s commitment to stop bullying. “It lets parents and students know that we are focusing in on this because it’s getting to be more of a problem,” Mixon said. “We felt like we needed some more specificity to it.”
Olweus’ research led him to develop the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, a widely adopted program that is one of several bullying prevention tools used in Mobile County Public Schools.
The Olweus program, which is implemented locally by Crittenton Youth Services, uses classroom meetings and surveys of students to identify the extent of the bullying problem in each school and hotspots where it occurs. It fosters communication between teachers, students and parents and calls for a principal-appointed committee within each school to develop a plan for addressing the issue.
Collins-Rhodes Elementary Principal Veronica Coleman, whose school began using the Olweus program this year, said it has given her students a better understanding of what bullying is. “My parents and students now understand the true meaning of bullying – that it is aggressive behavior that is intentional and repeated over time,” Coleman said.
Other research-based programs utilized in Mobile County Public Schools include Capturing Kids’ Hearts, The Leader in Me and Positive Behavior Intervention & Supports.
The Leader in Me is designed to be a “whole school transformation process” in which students are taught leadership and life skills to create a culture of student empowerment, utilizing the program’s “7 Habits of Happy Kids.” St. Elmo Elementary Principal Deborah Fletcher calls it “one of the most valuable endeavors for children that I have pursued in my 25 years of education.”
“The Leader in Me process helps each child recognize their worth and potential so clearly that they see it in themselves,” Fletcher said. “Since we have implemented Leader in Me, discipline referrals have decreased significantly, students work together to solve challenges with each other using the 7 Habits. When discipline issues decrease, instructional time in the classroom increases so students learn more.”
Capturing Kids’ Hearts focuses on helping teachers build healthy relationships with students and earn their trust, and sets parameters for good conduct by requiring students and teachers to adhere to a social contract.
“That empowers kids to run their own classroom by making sure everyone follows the rules they all agreed to at the beginning,” said Mary G. Montgomery High principal Joe Toomey, who used the program in his previous tenure at Clark-Shaw School of Math and Science and intends to institute it at MGM as well.
MCPSS also takes advantage of community programs such as the Helping Families initiative and Bully Blocker from the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office, family intervention programs from the Mobile Police Department and mentoring programs by 100 Black Men and other groups. MCPSS also uses its own television network, mcpssTV, and other internal means to reinforce anti-bullying messages and strategies.
Mixon said MCPSS also will be tracking the effectiveness of these programs already in place. He encouraged parents who know of any bullying situation within an MCPSS school to contact administrators at the school. If the problem is not resolved to their satisfaction, they can contact Student Services at MCPSS’ Central Campus.
While bullying is not a new phenomenon, Mixon said that with technological advances such as cell phone cameras and social media, “it’s just exacerbated. It’s a little more fierce now with kids and the things that they will say.”