By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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a hand with the word no to bullying written on it — Photo by Road Ahead on Unsplash

Stafford County Public Schools’ student support team has been working hard this year to ensure that students, staff, and families understand the definition of bullying, in addition to hosting anti-bullying awareness campaigns at the elementary, middle, and high school level.

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Anne Bueche, the division’s chief student support officer, presented an overview of this year’s anti-bullying efforts and mental health support initiatives at Tuesday’s School Board work session.

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Among these is a digital reporting system which is accessible to students and families, and has received 14 tips about bullying since being implemented, which have all been passed along to school administrative teams, Bueche said.

Tuesday’s presentation highlighted the definition of bullying as it appears in state code, with which the school division’s policy aligns, stressing that it must involve “a real or perceived power imbalance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim” and must be “repeated over time or [cause] severe emotional trauma.”

The definition includes cyber-bullying, but not “ordinary teasing, horseplay, arguments, or peer conflict.”

Every instance of alleged bullying is documented and investigated to determine whether it meets this definition. Alexis White, with the office of student conduct, told board members that the team trains school-based administrators annually and on a regular basis to ensure that they are responding properly, as is required by state code.

According to data shared Tuesday, this year there have been 39 reports of bullying at the elementary school level that were investigated and not found to meet the code definition, and 11 reports that did.

At the middle school level, there have been 69 unfounded and eight founded reports; and at the high school level, there have been 16 unfounded and three founded reports.

“We’ve worked really hard about ensuring that the data is accurate so we’re able to support schools as best as possible,” said Alexis White, with the division’s office of student conduct. “We expect there to be a little bit of an increase [in the number of founded cases] as we continue to train our staff and make sure they’re looking at the right piece. It’s important to note that.”

Even if the allegation is not found to meet the definition of bullying, the student support team will still look to see if there is a Code of Conduct violation that needs to be enforced, or if some other support is needed for the alleged victim, White said.

“We will continue work on relationship behaviors that are perceived as bullying but do not meet that threshold,” she said. Examples of these kinds of behaviors are posting or distributing inappropriate materials; verbal or written confrontations; and slurs based on actual or perceived membership in one or more sub-groups.

White said there’s “a much higher” number of reports of these kinds of behaviors—47 instances in elementary schools, 83 in middle, and 74 in high school, according to data presented Tuesday.

“But what that’s telling us is that when admin is made aware, they are stepping in and enforcing our code of conduct and taking investigation and follow-through seriously, so we don’t get in a situation where students are being bullied,” White said. “If the perception is that [a student] is being bullied, we to address that part of it.”

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