How Beverly Hills School District Works To Prevent Bullying

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — October is National Bullying Prevention Month. The campaign aims to bring attention to the bullying problem and involve people nationwide in a conversation on how to create a world safe from bullying.

In the Beverly Hills Unified School District, there are programs in place for bullying prevention.

In March, the district announced two anti-bullying initiatives: the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program, as well as the Olweus Anti-Bullying curriculum.

Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is a framework that "shifts how students are disciplined by identifying behaviors as discrete skills that must be taught and retaught rather than punished. When a student does not know how to read, we teach them. However, when a student does not know how to behave, we often punish them or send them home. This framework supports the notion that we treat behavior as we would any other subject in school," the district said.

In conjunction with the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports program, BHUSD also deployed the Olweus Anti-Bullying program/curriculum. "This prevention program is designed to improve peer relations and make schools safer, more positive places for students to learn and develop," the district said. The Olweus Anti-Bullying program is the "most researched and best-known bullying prevention program available today," according to the Olweus website. The program is a "whole-school program that has been proven to prevent or reduce bullying throughout a school setting," the website said.

Read more about the programs in this letter from the district.

Related >> Unity Day: What It Is, How To Participate In Beverly Hills

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