Fort Lee Schools Prepare For New Anti-Bullying Laws

Fort Lee students returning to school this year will join their counterparts statewide in being the first to be covered by what the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) considers “the most stringent anti-bullying laws in the nation.”

The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, as it's known, was signed into law in January with the staunch backing of NJSBA and takes effect this school year.

“For students, it means additional levels of protection against harassment, intimidation and bullying,” according to NJSBA officials. “For public schools, it means a heightened level of attention on school bullies.”

The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act includes dozens of provisions affecting all grade levels. NJSBA highlights the following among them:

• All school officials and educators, including teachers, administrators and board members have to be trained.
• School districts have to designate an anti-bullying coordinator, and every school has to have an anti-bulling specialist and a safety team “to maintain a positive school environment, investigate complaints and implement the bullying prevention programs that are now required by the law.”
• The law specifies a process and strict deadlines to investigate bullying complaints; school staff must report incidents of bullying in writing to the principal within two days, and investigations need to be conducted within 10 days.
• Twice a year, school superintendents are required to report all acts of violence, vandalism and bullying that occurred during the previous reporting period at a public meeting of the Board of Education. Cases also have to be reported to the state for inclusion in the state’s “School Report Cards” online.

In Fort Lee, the anti-bullying coordinator is Assistant Superintendent Steven Engravalle, and he says the district is ready, having identified its anti-bullying specialists at each school, posting the school district’s harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) policy on its website—a “one-stop shop to the policies and procedures required in the law” as Engravalle put it—and planning to host HIB trainings throughout the month of September for parents to learn more about the process, timeline and instructions for reporting incidents of bullying and the law itself.

“The key to this whole law is educating people of what bullying really is,” Engravalle said. “Bullying is not always going to be [one kid] pushes [another kid] on the playground. That’s not always bullying. But that’s going to be the key--to identify it. When you refer to something as ‘bullying,’ that does trigger a specific set of steps and a procedure that must take place. And we’re taking that very seriously.”

As anti-bullying coordinator, Engravalle oversees the specialists—the school-level supervisors or “experts” on bullying and the law.

Those specialists are as follows:

• School Psychologist Reina Sandouk at Fort Lee High School
• Guidance Counselor Tara Hintze at Lewis F. Cole Middle School
• Guidance Counselor Marisa Buonomo at School No. 1
• School Psychologist Rachel Cola at School No. 2
• Guidance Counselor Margaret Brennan at School No. 3
• Guidance Counselor Nancy Sanders at School No. 4

Each anti-bullying specialist at each school chairs what the state calls the “school safety team,” but what Engravalle refers to as the “school climate team” as a more accurately descriptive moniker.

“That team is going to consist of the principal or designate—so it could be the principal or vice principal—one teacher, one parent and any other members to be determined [by the principal or anti-bullying specialist],” Engravalle explained. “Their purpose is essentially to receive complaints that come in that have been reported to the principal, review the reports and identify the needs in the school—if you see any patterns to maybe recommend professional development; getting the climate of the school; review and strengthen policies and practices within the school and help educate the community, teachers [and] parents.”

Engravalle also noted an important stipulation for any parent who serves as a member of one of the anti-bullying teams: that parent members can’t review complaints; won’t receive copies of any reports because it’s confidential information and won’t look at patterns in the school.

“What they will be doing is helping to strengthen the climate and policies in the school,” Engravalle said of the parent members. “They’ll get trained; they’ll help educate the community—[they’ll be] our conduit out into the community—and they’ll also be reviewing and strengthening the climate through recommendations of programs and things like that.”

In Fort Lee, school anti-bullying specialists are being trained this week by Strauss Esmay Associates, the company with which the school district has contracted to provide a detailed guide and training package on the new law and resulting policies.

After that, the school-level specialists, in conjunction with the principal at each school, will conduct four 30-minute trainings using the Strauss Esmay manual and videos with “everyone who deals with students,” according to Engravalle, including everyone from teachers to custodians and bus drivers. BOE members will also receive the training, he said.

Engravalle called the $1,200 price tag for the entire Strauss Esmay package, which includes a manual all school specialists will have; training on all aspects and requirements of the law; and all the procedures and forms the district is going to use, “money well spent,” because the materials ensure consistency, among other advantages.

"The board made the right decision by going with the resources from Strauss Esmay because the tools they provide assure that parallelism and consistency in the response to suspected bullying will exist throughout all of our schools. As you know, we’re always trying to make sure every student gets the same level of care, and this tool helps to guarantee that,” Engravalle said. “Additionally, rather than consistently having to call people in to do training, [we] now own the manual and training videos and [we] have the rights to present them to staff as often as we need. And the beauty of this is if you sent people out or brought a speaker in to conduct the required training at the beginning of the school year, when you hire new staff, what do you do? With the Strauss Esmay tools, we can train [new staff members] as they come in and offer refresher trainings more often to keep staff informed."

At Monday’s Fort Lee Board of Education meeting, Engravalle said the school district’s harassment, intimidation and bullying policy would be posted on the school district’s website by Sept. 1. It's now available here, and Engravalle said he will be adding more documents in the coming days and weeks.

"We are ahead of many schools with our forms and procedures, and we feel we have a good handle on the law," Engravalle said in an email Wednesday. "Nonetheless, we will continue to strive to do better each day and remain committed to making each of our schools a 'Bully-Free Zone.'"