Bully Navigator: The Ultimate Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Child from Bullying and Sexual Violence at School

By Lawrence J Altman JD and Steve M Cohen Ed.D.

If you have a student who has been victimized while at school, you will need the information in this book to hold administrator's "feet to the fire" to provide protection for your son or daughter.

Unfortunately, many administrators cannot be counted upon to do what is right in a situation where your child has been victimized. They are ofte

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Jun 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648950643

Book preview

Dedication

To students who have been the victims of harassment and to those who work so hard to prevent it.

Introduction

We, the authors, wrote From Bullying to Sexual Violence: Protecting Children While at School because we are passionate about kids. We care deeply about student safety and their well-being. We also care about schools and their ability to provide the best possible environment given their limited resources and their other limitations. Additionally, we want them to spend less time and money on lawyers. We would rather see them do the right thing voluntarily rather than be forced to do it by parents.

Schools have students who are misunderstood. Schools have students who are at risk. Schools have students who will victimize other students. If you have a student who has been victimized, you will need the information in this book to hold administrator’s feet to the fire.

We know that businesses are very much Darwinian.

Unfortunately, some administrators cannot be counted upon to do what is right in a situation where your child has been victimized. They are often well intentioned, but sadly we have seen over and over that they either don’t know what to do or won’t do what is needed to when confronted with the victimized student.

That is where YOU, as parents come in. You are going to have to stand up for your kids and demand that the school administration do what is right and what is actually required of the school. You can’t count on the Federal Department of Education or its Office of Civil Rights (its enforcement arm) to hold school administrators accountable. The courts will do their job, but the Department of Education is nothing but a paper tiger, a joke really, as far as the school administrator is concerned.

This book will provide you parents with the tools you need to get and keep the school on the task of protecting your school aged children. This book is not about preventing the bullying or sexual violence, but once it has happened and you become aware of the mess, this book will guide you in holding the school administrator accountable to take the steps needed to protect your child and to react appropriately.

We authors are saddened by and disappointed in many of the school administrators we have encountered. Not all school administrators, but most administrators. We are postulating that you too will be disappointed with your children’s school administrators. You will have to put on your armor and go into battle on behalf of your son or daughter or grandkids. This book will provide some of that armor.

Acknowledgments:

Steve Cohen

I would like to thank several people for their help in getting this book written and published. Special thanks to Austin Holt who is a brilliant business partner and a great person. My co-author, Larry Altman, is an incredible advocate for children and their safety at school.

Additionally, I would like to thank the rest of the team:

Andy Cohen for your amazing skills getting the computer to cooperate and perform pure magic; Dale Garrison for making the website and communication in general to work; and Lydia Young for your professionalism and gifts for understanding and helping others.

This book has been an amazing journey. The subject matter has been intended to help parents be more adept in their efforts to protect their children. We have found that unfortunately, some (perhaps even many) school administrators cannot be trusted to follow the rules established under Title IX and even follow the anti-bullying laws established by most states. If they do follow the rules and requirements then everyone is happy. If they do not, then parents, armed with the information in this book, will have the information they need to make the schools do what they are supposed to do. If the schools still do not do what they are supposed to do after being officially informed about bullying by parents, the schools have wandered into a zone called reckless disregard. If that happens, then parents will have a greatly enhanced position in a lawsuit against the school.

The subject matter is very personal to me. There has been a suicide and a sexual assault in my family. I know how deeply affected the victims and their families are by these travesties. This book is intended to get and keep the ball rolling on changing the paradigms in our society.

Acknowledgments:

Lawrence Altman

There are many people that I want to thank for helping complete one of the items on my bucket list: publication of a book.

First, I want to thank my wife for always being there for me and never allowing me to give up on myself. Gail—you are my best friend, and if I have done anything good in the world, full credit goes to you. I love you and thank you for everything. You have been my wife and best friend for over forty-five years, and together, we have two outstanding sons and two wonderful grandchildren. I also want to thank my coauthor, Steve Cohen, who believed that I could do this. Steve’s experience as an author has been invaluable. Steve has always encouraged my writing efforts and always supported me when I was bogged down in the midst of writing my portions of this book.

Another of my teammates, whom I want to thank is IntegraEd’s software genius, Andy Cohen. I don’t know how he does it, but Andy is the teammate who develops the software that schools can use to help administrators and teachers prevent bullying and, as a by-product of that, keep our schools safe.

In addition, I want to thank my hero and the hero of every disabled child and parents of disabled children, the Honorable Judge of the Missouri Supreme Court, Richard B. Teitelman, who sadly passed away a few years ago. The encouragement over the years that he had given to Gail and me is beyond comprehension.

Finally, thank you to the heroes, school administrators, and school staffs, who dedicate themselves to prevent bullying in the school setting, helping the victims heal, as well as helping the perpetrators learn to stop.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Federal and State Compliance—The Backstory

Chapter 2: Bullying Definitions

Chapter 3: OCR Expands a School’s Obligation to Investigate Bullying of Disabled Students

Chapter 4

Case Study—Seventh Grade

Case Study—University vocal student

Case Study—Summer Program (Staff Perpetrator)

Case Study—Eighth Grade

Chapter 5: Parents Must Provide Specific Allegations to School Staff When Claiming That Their Child Has Been Bullied or Harassed

Chapter 6: Anti-Bullying Policy and Procedures Notice of Anti-Bullying Policy

Chapter 7: Mistakes That Must Be Avoided When Responding to Disability-Based Harassment and Sexual Harassment

Chapter 8: Summation of November 27, 2018, Proposed Title IX Regulations

Chapter 9: Do Public Schools Have Assistance Obligations to Students Who Suffer from the Bystander Effect?

Chapter 10: How the Anniversary Effect When Left Unchecked Might Lead to a Tragic Outcome

Chapter 11: How Schools Should Respond to Students with Mental Health Issues

Chapter 12: Summation of Recent Bullying of Disabled Students

Chapter 13: Bad Things Happen to Children When Schools Fail to Follow Their Own Policies

Chapter 14: Schools’ Failures to Follow Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws Leads to Negative Outcome for Students Impacted by These Failures

Chapter 15: Summation of United States Secret Service’s Guide for Preventing School Violence

Chapter 16: Baldrige Model will assist schools in developing its policies, protocols, and procedures for conducting Title IX investigations in compliance with the OCR’s requirements.

Chapter 17: The Need to Create Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems in the Time of the Coronavirus

Endnotes

Chapter 1:

Federal and State Compliance—The Backstory

I. INTRODUCTION

United States public schools are obligated to do the most important job for all American children: Provide them with a world class education in a safe and nurturing environment. Yet, the road to accomplishing this goal has never been easy. In fact, over the years Federal and State laws have added obligations upon school administrators besides education to accomplish this primary goal. To illustrate, some federal statues such as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act¹ and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973² mandate that public schools provide a Free Appropriate Publication for children who have qualifying disabilities alongside their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent possible. Further some federal regulations require schools to protect students from bullying and sexual harassment. What’s more the negative impact caused by trauma to a child, including but not limited to the fear created by school shootings, must be accounted for by school officials. This book will discuss some federal and state legal requirements along with other government published resources that provide guidance to school administrators to address these issues. Accordingly, parents must make certain that their children’s school administrators use these resources to develop policies, protocols and procedures that will improve student safety.

II. HISTORY OF LAWS THAT PROTECT STUDENTS FROM INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

Since 2010, the Office for Civil Rights has demanded that schools promptly respond to allegations of bullying and harassment and take effective steps to prevent recurrence. Indeed, OCR has said that when student misconduct violates civil rights laws, not only must the school discipline the perpetrator it must also eliminate the hostile environment created by the harassment, address its effects, and take steps to ensure that harassment does not recur.³ This publication, therefore, requires schools to adopt policies that comply with OCR’s suggested procedures for conducting investigations of alleged bullying or harassment or face the potential loss of federal funding.

Further, when reviewing a claim that a school did not take appropriate steps in investigating an allegation of bullying against a student, OCR first focuses upon the process the schools used during its investigation of the allegation of bullying or harassment. To illustrate, on October 20, 2013, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services and the Office of Special Education Programs published a Letter providing public schools with a suggested practice for preventing and addressing bullying.⁴ What’s more, on October 21, 2014, OCR published another Letter informing schools that if a student receiving services under the Individual with Disabilities Education Act⁵ or accommodations under Section 504 Rehabilitation Act of 1973⁶ is bullied for any reason, even if not related to the child’s disability, the school must determine whether or not the bullying impacted the child’s entitlement to receive a Free Appropriate Public Education.⁷ Federal agencies moreover, demand that it expects public schools to teach what they call clear behavioral expectations to all students and staff in the same manner as any core subject.⁸

III. The IDEA and Section 504 Interaction with Student Mental Health

A student is eligible to receive special education and related services under the IDEA only if a team, known as the Individual Education Plan Team, determines that a child has a disability under one of thirteen IDEA qualifying conditions and requires special education services. In fact, IDEA recognizes that some students may have a mental health issue that rises to the level of a qualifying IDEA disability. Accordingly, those students are entitled to receive special education services at no cost from the school.

Also, Section 504’s definition of disability is: (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.⁹ The Office for Civil Rights has said that this definition of a disability qualifications does not require an extensive analysis by the school staff, nor can mitigating factors, like medications, be used to determine a child’s 504 qualification.¹⁰ In addition although no psychological condition will automatically qualify a student for a 504 disability, if a student has a confirmed diagnosis of PTSD, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder, that student would be presumed to have a qualifying 504 disorder unless the school provides substantial evidence to rebut this presumption.¹¹

What’s more Child Find, under the IDEA, requires public schools to locate, identify and evaluate all students that reside in the district who are in need of special education services.¹² The requirements of Child Find also apply to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.¹³ Both of these laws require schools to assess a student who they suspect of having an IDEA or Section 504 disability that may include but are not limited to students who have mental health problems. In fact, this obligates a school to assess a child who is known to have a mental health problem to see if the child has a qualifying disability as that term is defined by the IDEA or Section 504. That said assessment does not equal qualification. Rather assessment puts the school on notice of a potential disability. Thus, schools must look to the IDEA and Section 504 for guidance to help students before the situation escalates into a potential for student self-harm or, worse, death by suicide.

IV. SCHOOLS DOING NOTHING IS NEVER AN OPTION

In July of 2018, in response to the MDHS shooting and the May 18, 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, the United States Department of Homeland Security published its National Threat Assessment Model¹⁴. Although the model stated that there is no profile for a student attacker, it did discuss the need to understand student mental health issues and how bullying of students might be a contributing factor in these shootings. But sadly, even if schools were to adopt all of the recommendations listed in the publication and faithfully implemented those recommendations, this, in of itself, is no guarantee that another school shooting will not occur.

Yet doing nothing or ignoring possible warning signs is not an alternative. Today schools have no choice other than to be proactive and take all reasonable steps in helping students who might create a risk to school safety so that there is at least a possibility of a decrease in the kind of tragedies that took place in Sandy Hook, MDHS, and Santa Fe and the aftermath shock and trauma caused by these events. It needs to be an imperative, as one life lost is too many.

PARENTS, MOREOVER, MUST DEMAND THAT ALL DEVELOPED POLICIES, PROTOCOLS AND PROCEDURES ARE ALWAYS IMPLEMENTED, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, SO THAT PARENTS MIGHT BE ABLE TO FEEL SOMEWHAT BETTER ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN’S SAFETY AND EDUCATION WHEN THEY SEND THEM OFF TO SCHOOL.

Chapter 2:

Bullying Definitions

Bullying: Is defined as intimidation, unwanted aggressive behavior, or harassment that is repetitive or is substantially likely to be repeated and causes a reasonable student to fear for his or her physical safety or property, substantially interferes with the educational performance opportunities or benefits of any student without exception, or substantially disrupts the orderly operation of the school. When investigating allegations of bullying, the situation is to be viewed through the eyes of the alleged victim taking into account the age of the alleged victim and any disability the alleged victim has as the term disability is defined by the Individual Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Cyberbullying: Is bullying as defined above that occurs through the transmission of a communication including but not limited to,