Dear Parents and Guardians,
I hope everyone is well. I would like to focus this entry on the topic of bullying and harassment. My administrative team and I are not surprised by the fact that we are receiving increased amounts of bullying and harassment reports this school year. This is expected since increased opportunities for students to interact with each other socially would inevitably lead to increased incidents of behaviors where students are intentionally or unintentionally hurting each other. Students are also coming from a year where most of their social interactions occurred online where the impact of what they communicate to others and how they communicate that information is dramatically different than if they were to deliver it in person. The McCall staff is doing what we can to teach and reteach many of the social skills students have not been using during pandemic schooling.
One of the most important lessons all students should learn is the idea of intent versus impact. Intent refers to what a person thinks he or she is doing. Impact refers to how that action was perceived by the other person. We find aggressors in a bullying situation tend to focus their response on their intent. For example, a student who repeatedly told racist jokes to a group of friends would likely say he was trying to spice up their conversations and was not trying to hurt anyone. He may even say he engaged in this behavior continuously because many of those individuals in that group were laughing along. Even if that is the case, the fact that the student of color in that group felt disrespected and humiliated still happened. The impact of those jokes was that a hostile environment was created for that one student who was in the group and for other bystanders who heard the jokes even though they were not the intended audience. It is also possible there were students in the group who were offended and hurt by the jokes but chose to laugh along because they did not know what else to do. The joke teller engaged in bullying regardless of his intent.
Students who are targets of bullying behaviors and their caregivers often ask school officials what punishments will be assigned to the aggressor if it was determined bullying did occur. It is important for everyone to remember that a student’s disciplinary records are part of his or her school records and that information cannot be shared with other students and families according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). My administrative team and I will always share information pertaining to the response plan that is created to keep the target safe and support him or her during the school day.
Ultimately, the goal of the District’s Bullying Prevention Plan is to maintain a safe learning environment for all and to keep bullying from reoccurring or happening in the first place. Therefore, the school would often propose taking a restorative justice approach as part of a response plan to any bullying incident. A restorative justice approach involves holding meetings among the aggressor, the target, and others who may be involved in the incident. The purpose of those meetings is to help the aggressor understand the impact of his or her actions on the target and the community, take responsibilities for his or her actions, and formulate a plan so that the hurtful incidents do not reoccur. We believe the restorative justice approach can also benefit the target since it gives him or her the ability to play an active role in the process. The Blueprint Anchor of RULER is essentially a restorative justice approach for those of you who are familiar with it.
Please note that we will take the restorative justice approach only if all parties are willing participants and the parents and guardians of both the aggressor and target consent to taking this step. Please also know that the restorative justice approach does not mean no disciplinary actions such as detentions and suspensions will be taken. The restorative justice approach and disciplinary actions can occur concurrently even though the disciplinary actions may be invisible to the targets because of the confidentiality issue that I mentioned above. It is important to remember that taking disciplinary actions is part of the educational process and its main purpose is to prevent further bullying behaviors from happening.
Lastly, I would like everyone to know that we treat all reports of bullying seriously. The best way for students, parents, and guardians to help us address bullying behaviors is to report those types of incidents immediately after it happens. All bullying reports require investigations, so the longer time passes after an incident occurs the harder it becomes for school officials to gather information about it. It is also very help for those who experienced bullying to keep artifacts related to those incidents. Screen captures of online posts and messages are very helpful.
Thank you, and I wish everyone well.
James Lin
Principal
McCall Middle School
