I’ve been trying to follow the latest developments with the anti-bullying bill.
MassEquality and the MGLPC have put out calls in the last week for members to contact their legislators to support the bill. However, the bill appears to be flawed in that it does not enumerate categories for protection, including glbt youth or youth perceived to be glbt.
National organizations that work on school bullying such as GLSEN, the Family Equality Council and PFLAG all have position statements supporting enumeration. See e.g., PFLAG, FEC, and GLSEN.
I have been told that there has been work to get enumeration added to the bill but that so far it “won’t fly” in the legislature. The bottom line for me is that kids should be safe at school. GLBT kids, in particular, can be subject to incredible abuse if schools don’t actively combat bullying. It sounds like the bill under consideration has some positives; I very much would prefer to see it include enumeration, though.
I went to elementary school with braces up to both hips, then special shoes, and still walked funny (fixed foot angular toe walker – dual partial club feet).
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p>Some parents would not allow their kids to associate with me; they felt that anyone who walked like that must be mentally defective, and said so in my hearing and my parent’s hearing.
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p>Kids called me “twinkle toes” because I toe walked, wrote that on my desk, my books, my clothes and physically attacked me as well as walking behind me sniggering and copying the way I walked.
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p>I got suspended a few times because when I got attacked, I fought back. I don’t want other childhoods to teach that safety requires drawing blood first, like mine did. Do you? I do not remember any adult intervening, either.
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p>So it is not just LGBT youth. Walk “funny”, talk “funny” and if no one teaches inclusion, the herd cuts you out.
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p>Maybe enumeration is exclusion rather than an improvement? It is the bullying behavior and exclusion and demeaning of another vulnerable child that must be stopped in part by adults teaching compassion – a very different concept from pity.
It turns out that policies that don’t spell out categories to protect don’t work as well as those that do. Enumeration isn’t just for kids perceived to be glbt, but should include race, disability, and other categories that can make kids targets.
Unless you want to include perceived nerd, or not athletic, or just simply not interested in the same things as many of their peers as categories. Targeting for bullies is often long on randomness and short on logic. I would prefer to just target all harassing behavior against any target for any reason or no reason.
Unenumerated policies are not effective.
I never intended to suggest that LGBT youth aren’t a statistically significant target for bullying, but I still see no reason to separate them from other targets. No student should be harrassed by other students for any reason – period. That should be the anti-bullying philosophy of the schools. Also GLSEN specifically advocates for this constituency, which is all well and good, but obviously the focus of their research is going to be the effects of policies and actions on these particular students. Enumeration is a distraction; we need to focus on the acts regardless of target or perpetrator.
is that
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p>1. All School Committees need to review and write or rewrite policies on anti-bullying.
2. All School Councils be required to review said policies and report to the Committee as to how the policy is being implemented in each school building (data required).
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p>Unfortunately, the legislature will likely screw this up with unfunded mandates on training and burdensome reporting requirements that won’t address the problem.
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p>I remember the last time the legislature reacted emotionally to news stories about students carrying weapons into schools. They passed a law which required Principals to put in writing the reason why they didn’t expel elementary school children who happened to bring a pocket knife to school. I’m not exaggerating.