D.C. Public Schools is creating a broad-based panel to battle the pervasive childhood problem of bullying.
The committee, composed of 40 DCPS principals, staff, superintendents and community experts, will identify schools’ strengths and weaknesses in preventing bullying and will research how to deal with the issue and come up with anti-bully initiatives.
It’s a first for Washington, which remains the only “state” besides South Dakota not to enact anti-bullying legislation.
Nearly 10 percent of D.C. high school students and 28 percent of middle school students reported being bullied on school property within a year of a 2010 survey. At every middle school in D.C., at least 60 percent of students said they were “made fun of for the way they look or talk” often or sometimes. And more than half of middle school students said fights occurred “often” or “sometimes” — Eliot-Hine and Shaw were at the top of the list, with 81 and 80 percent, respectively.
“Not only is bullying an intolerable threat to student safety, it also has collateral consequences,” said Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. “If students don’t feel safe at school, it creates a barrier to their pursuit of a quality education.”
DCPS pointed to its LGBTQ Steering Committee as proof that the new group could help bring change to schools.
“It’s imperative that we provide clear guidance to principals so they can respond consistently to bullying behaviors and make recommendations for age-appropriate interventions,” Henderson said.
School reform advocates said the new committee was a good first step.
“For [Henderson] to really try to systematize [the issue] in a very thoughtful way I think is very great,” said HyeSook Chung of DC Action for Children. “I think it can be very problematic if it’s left to each of the schools to define, and I think there needs to be some uniformity of what bullying is and how to address it.”
Henderson announced the creation of the committee after a screening of the documentary “Bullying,” hosted by the Motion Picture Association of America.
The committee has scheduled its first meeting for Wednesday.
