Swampscott School Committee focuses on bullying prevention

SWAMPSCOTT – The School Committee on Wednesday discussed a bullying prevention and intervention plan, which is required by state law.Last month, the School Committee voted unanimously to adopt a comprehensive bullying policy for the district and now the district is moving forward with developing a Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan bring it into compliance with new Department of Education (DOE) mandates. The DOE is requiring all districts in the state to develop a comprehensive plan.It requires school districts to form a committee and come up with a plan on how the bullying policy would be enforced including guidelines for intervention, teacher training and a policy on police involvement.Assistant Superintendent Maureen Bingham said the district formed a task force that has several sub-committees and it has come up with a draft of a Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan.Bingham said she accessed plans developed by other schools on the North Shore to use as a model for the plan.?We want to make Swampscott Public Schools safe and respectful,” she said.The bullying policy that was adopted last month by the School Committee uses the definition of bullying put forth by state law, which defines it as “the repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or electronic or a physical act or gesture or any combination thereof?”The comprehensive five page policy bans bullying and cyber-bullying on school grounds, property adjacent to school grounds, at school sponsored or school-related functions.It also prohibits any bullying including electronic that creates a hostile environment at school for the target or disrupts the educational process.The policy outlines what bullying is but the Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan takes it one step further. It mandates reporting, outlines investigative steps that need to be followed and what actions need to be taken if the complaint is founded. It also spells out what services need to be provided to victims and aggressors.Bingham said the plan would be posted on the district Web site in the near future and the public would have two weeks to submit comments before the plan is tweaked and submitted to the DOE.Bingham added several key staff members have already been trained and certified to provide training on bullying to other staff members in the district so training would be done in-house.