Cyberbullying and Georgia’s Schools

“Most bullying now is what we call ‘cyberbullying,’” Simpson says.  As heard on the radio

Whether that’s a student posting intimate pictures of another after a high school romance sours – or two students exchanging threats via text, the rise of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media programs has created new and more discrete platforms for students to bully and intimidate classmates in and outside of school.

It’s also left school districts grappling with how to address bullying that goes beyond the school day.

For his part, Simpson says social media has changed how teachers at his school deal with a bullying complaint.

“That involves us having to confiscate cell phones, asking a student to pull up their Instagram page, getting a password, and so it’s taken the investigation to a little bit more in-depth process,” he says.

A Georgia law defines bullying as a “written, verbal or physical act” that “a reasonable person” would consider a threat, harassment or intimidation.

Simpson says that law extends to all school activities and property, including any school computer programs or servers. But he says any cyberbullying that continues outside of school is grey area.

“Our hands are tied. There’s not much we can do once they get home,” he says.

In fact, a handful of districts across the country are facing lawsuits that stem from that grey area.

They come from parents of bullied children who say teachers should have stepped in sooner, and parents of alleged bullies who say the school has no grounds to discipline their child for something unrelated to school.

“That’s the legal quagmire that schools face,” says Garry McGiboney, the association superintendent for policy at the state Department of Education.

McGiboney says the state is trying to take a new approach to how it addresses bullying before it happens, whether it’s online or in the classroom.

“We haven’t approached it as a school climate issue, and that’s what we’re beginning to do now, is to focus on the conditions that allow bullying to take place,” he says.

Recently the Education Department announced plans to develop a five-star rating system that will attempt to gauge a school’s atmosphere.

The School Climate Star Rating will take annual survey data from students, teachers and parents that already being collected, along with hard data like attendance rate and disciplinary actions, to determine the school’s climate.

“Research essentially shows that if you focus just one thing, like bullying, the long-term impact is limited, but if you take a broader approach of the conditions in which something like bullying occurs, you’re more likely to be successful in reducing that problem,” he says.

McGiboney says he hopes the rating will incentivize schools with low marks to put in place programs to change their climate. He says the department hopes to have the ratings published by December.

This report is part of American Graduate – Let’s make it happen – a public media initiative supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help more kids stay on the path to graduation.