NJ Schools Wrestle With Discipline, Bullying Claims Post-COVID

NEW JERSEY — The return to the classroom for the 2021-22 school year after 18 months of disruptions because of the coronavirus pandemic has brought with it a host of challenges for school districts across New Jersey.

Much has been discussed about academic challenges and making up for lost instructional time, but hand-in-hand with the academic challenges have been issues of getting students used to being in the classroom again with a host of classmates.

Months of classes viewed via computer screens curtailed some bullying because students weren’t face to face. The New Jersey School Performance Reports show half as many Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying incidents in 2020-21, with 1,467 compared with 4,625 in 2019-20. But with full-day classes back in the swing, administrators across the state are seeing a return to pre-pandemic numbers of reports.

“We have seen as administrators … over the last two years the rise in discipline issues, inappropriate behaviors,” Brick Superintendent Thomas Farrell told parents at the March 15 school board meeting. “Mental health concerns have tripled in the last year and a half.”

That rise has brought with it a rise in the number of reports under the Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying Act as parents seek to stand up for their children.

Does that increase translate to more verified HIB incidents? Not necessarily, according to experts and officials, for one reason: New Jersey’s definition of what constitutes bullying is not the same as how the average person defines it.

“There's a big difference between the common use of bullying and the legal definition” under New Jersey’s Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying Act, said LaCoyya Weathington, assistant superintendent in the Cherry Hill Public Schools. Weathington, who oversees the district’s compliance, equity and pupil services — including its HIB compliance — said the common thought regarding bullying is of things such as relentless namecalling, physical attacks and other harassment.

Under New Jersey’s HIB law, harassment and bullying are only a violation if the person who is being bullied is among those protected from discrimination under state or federal law, she said.

“One of the most essential elements is that the incident has to be motivated by an actual or perceived characteristic, and there's lots of areas that can be addressed — race, color, sexual orientation, gender identity,” Weathington said during a February board meeting in Cherry Hill. “There's got to be a distinguishing characteristic, or it absolutely will not meet the criteria for HIB.”

Farrell, the Brick superintendent, said the increase in disciplinary issues has been vexing for administrators and has been discussed at superintendents’ roundtables both at local levels and statewide.

“We as educators do have to do a better job of acclimating students back to the social interaction,” Farrell said, as he responded to parents’ complaints at a March school board meeting over incidents in the district.

The need to help students readjust to being in school was something experts warned about last fall.

“As American schools have returned to in-person learning, bullying search trends are returning to their pre-pandemic levels,” wrote Michael Martinez and Deborah Temkin with the organization Child Trends, a research group focused on “improving the lives of children and youth, especially those who are most vulnerable.”

They urged school districts to return to the anti-bullying initiatives that were helping to lower bullying rates before the pandemic.

That’s why districts are investing in programs that promote social-emotional learning – to help students recover their abilities to empathize with others and remember how to treat them with the kindness they seek in return.

The effort invested in social-emotional learning pays dividends on the academic side, Farrell said, because students who are calm, who feel safe, learn better.

Ross Ellis, founder of Stomp Out Bullying, said it’s important to empower kids to see themselves as strong so they can brush off attempts to bully them. Ellis said that is particularly important with the trend of bullying where students tell other students they are worthless or far worse, such as suggesting suicide.

“No one should feel so bad about themselves that they would do that,” she said. “They shouldn’t even entertain that thought.” She said antibullying efforts should include addressing such comments in a calm manner, but helping children see the absurdity of such a suggestion so they will be equipped to reject it.

“Would you really, really do this just because someone says you should?” Ellis said.

She also said sometimes parents react to a simple conflict between children as bullying when it isn’t, a point Weathington made to the Cherry Hill school board.

When Weathington talks to parents who are upset because a HIB complaint has been determined to be unfounded, there’s a disconnect because of the way the HIB law is written. If a student retaliates against a person who is harassing them, it can be classified as a dispute rather than as bullying and can be subject to discipline for both students. If the bullying doesn't cause a disruption at school, such as the student missing classes or showing other distress, it can result in a finding that the issue isn't a HIB violation.

School officials can help ease some of those disconnects by making sure the process — from filing a HIB complaint all the way to its conclusion, along with the rights of everyone involved — is clearly explained to parents and students.

The process is critical, Farrell said, when it comes to HIB complaints because of laws protecting the privacy of all the children involved.

Farrell acknowledged the lack of information that is supplied to parents in these situations creates frustration, because schools cannot, by law, reveal what actions have been taken against a student.

It doesn’t mean officials have ignored a situation, he said.

“I can’t reveal details about another child any more than I can reveal details about yours,” he said to one parent.

Districts need to do a better job of making the information clear to parents, including every step of the process, and what it means for a child in a HIB situation on either side of it, Farrell said.

Weathington said she reminds parents who are frustrated with a HIB investigation, particularly parents of children accused of bullying, that children make mistakes and should be given the chance to learn from them and grow. In Cherry Hill, HIB complaints are filed separately from a student's permanent school file, and is not released to a college, for example.

“It doesn't mean they're bad" if they are found to have committed a HIB incident, she said. "We would never call a child bad. It means they made a mistake and guess what, you can recover. One mistake doesn't define your whole life. That's what we have to teach kids.”