NJ Legislature introduces anti-bullying bill of rights

[JackBeck]

http://bluejersey.com/diary/17020/new-jerseys-antibullying-bill-of-rights

From Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair, in the comments:

For about a year now, Garden State Equality, working with the Anti-Defamation League of New Jersey, the New Jersey Coalition on Bullying Awareness and Prevention, and the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, has hunkered down and conducted massive research and interviews with experts from across the state and national into what would make an anti-bullying law truly effective. 45 states around the country have anti-bullying laws, but all of them - including New Jersey's current law - are extremely weak. The 45 existing laws are largely based on the same template, so we really had to start from scratch.

We'll post the sponsors of the bill on Monday - but indeed, in the Senate, the three prime sponsors are Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), Diane Allen (R-Burlington) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). In the Assembly, the prime sponsors are Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen) and Mary Pat Angelini (R-Monmouth) and several others.

This bill will have very significant bipartisan support from the get-go.

Before I get to the highlights of the bill, a personal word, if I may: We at Garden State Equality asked so many legislators to sponsor this bill, including legislators who have differed with us on other issues. They have said yes, and we embrace them.

We don't believe any organization should write off or dissuade legislators who opposed us before - say, on marriage equality - from supporting a bill that can improve and even save students' lives. It would be tough to pass any legislation if we took the approach of, you voted against us once and we never want your support for anything else again.

It doesn't mean we won't remember, but it does mean we form whatever political coalitions we can on whatever bills we can.

Here are highlights of the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights:

-- The bill protects all students, including bullying based on "any actual or perceived characteristic of a student, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, disability, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic."

Thus the bill continues the wording of the 2002 law, which was smart wording - enumerating categories of students but not limiting protection to students in those categories. This bill protects ALL bullied students.

-- The bill's provisions apply to bullying at school, near school and on school buses and to cyberbullying.

-- The bill sets deadlines for incidents of bullying to be reported, investigated and resolved. School personnel will have to report incidents of bullying to principals on the same day as the incidents. Principals will have to inform parents or guardians on the same day as the incidents. An investigation will have to begin within one school day of an incident and be resolved within 10 school days of an incident.

-- The bill provides for anti-bullying training of school personnel by involving a cross-section of top experts from academia and the not-for-profit sector.

-- The bill creates an anti-bullying specialist within each school, who would be the school guidance counselor or equivalent staff member, thus maximizing existing resources and stressing fiscal responsibility. The anti-bullying specialist shall head a school safety team, to include the principal, a teacher and a parent, to help the school maintain a climate free of bullying.

-- The bill provides that the name and contact information of the anti-bullying specialist be posted on the home page of every school's website.

-- The bill provides for the grading of each school on its safety, and provides that each school must put that grade on the home page of its website.

-- The bill incorporates instruction to counter bullying appropriate to each grade, and creates an annual school-wide Week of Respect during which school will provide anti-bullying programming.

-- The bill strengthens suicide prevention training for teachers, already required under a 2003 New Jersey law, to include information on the relationship between bullying and suicide, and information on reducing the occurrence of suicide among students most at risk.

-- The bill provides that public universities in the state must prohibit bullying and create anti-bullying rules and procedures for handling bullying, and distribute the rules and procedures to every university student within seven days of the start of the fall semester.

-- The bill updates the outmoded definition of bullying in New Jersey's current law, one of the narrowest and weakest definitions of any anti-bullying law in the country. The current law, enacted in 2002, mandates protection for bullied students only when they face harm or the threat of harm to themselves or their property or where there is a substantial disruption in school. Our bill, like subsequent, stronger anti-bullying laws across the country, will also protect students where bullying has created a hostile environment for them at school or infringes on their rights at school.