An 8th graders personal story with bullying

For those people who think the attention that we are giving bullying behavior in our schools is over blown, please check out this video.  It appeared on the Huffington Post blog.  If students are carrying these types of emotions for even the shortest amount of time, then that is time away from living and learning.  It is time that we take this on and work together to demonstrate respectful and responsible behavior.  It starts with us as adults by modeling the behavior that we wish to be exhibited.  Let's take this time during the holiday season to reflect on the year and pledge to make positive changes to our lives first and then to our closest relatives and friends.  After that, the ripple effect will most certainly take place in our communities.   

Warning:  There are some words on the cards that may only be suitable for teens and adults.  Viewer discretion is advised. 

NCMS Anti-bullying Task Force Policy adoption

Tomorrow night is the night.  Ten months of work with the NCMS Anti-bullying Task Force will come to fruition when the school committee adopts the newly amended Anti-bullying Policy.  The meeting is being held at 7:00 P.M. on Monday night at the Cumberland High School Trans Cafeteria.  Come out and show your support for the new policy.  Feel free to check out my last Anti-bullying post for the changes that will be taking place in the new policy.  Thank you for all of your support on behalf of the NCMS Anti-bullying Task Force. Check out my tweets live @JayRMasterson

October 24, 2011 Interview on 630 WPRO and 99.7 FM

This morning I was interviewed on the radio because of the work that we have done with the NCMS Anti-bullying Task Force.  We hope that this attention will assist in reducing the incidents of bullying by providing students with resources and outlets to deal with the issues associated with this topic. 


Click on the download button to access the audio.   

NCMS Anti-Bullying Task Force in the headlines

I just wanted to provide an update on the anti-bully task force at North Cumberland Middle School.  The Cumberland School Committee's Rules and Regulations Commitee met on October 13, 2011 and approved a motion to send the amended policy to the full committee for adoption.  We are planning a special, stand alone school committee night where the only item on the agenda is the Anti-Bully Policy read out and adoption.  We are planning a presentation by a leading researcher in the field, Dr. Larry Filippelli, Assistant Superintendent of Scituate Public Schools.  Below is a link to the headline in the Valley Breeze this morning concerning the Rules and Regulations meeting. Feel free to come out and support this policy on November 21, 2011.  I appreciate the hard work that the members of the Task Force put forth to make this policy possible.  On behalf of the Task Force, I also would like to thank Dr. Thornton, Superintendent of Cumberland Public Schools for his support and the Cumberland School Committee.  This would not be possible without them.

Valley Breeze article from Thursday, October 20, 2011
http://breezepapers.com/2011/10/19/cl/cumberland-schools-among-first-to-address-at-home-cyberbullying

Here is a video from Channel 12 News:

Cumberland cracks down on cyberbullying: wpri.com

NCMS Anti-Bullying Task Force 2011

In January of this school year, North Cumberland Middle School embarked on their first anti-bullying task force meeting. The task force consisted of school personnel, district personnel, parents and students. This group of approximately 25 was given the task of reviewing the current district policy to see if it was still strong enough to meet the changing needs of our student and family population. Given the unfortunate tragedies recently portrayed in the media concerning bullying and harassment, after careful review and consideration, it was decided an upgrade was necessary. We started by reviewing the results of the South Hadley, MA task force report and realized how far behind we were. We decided to conduct a side by side comparison and fill in the gaps that existed in our policy with some of the recommendations of the South Hadley report.


At about the time that we were completing our own recommendations to forward to our superintendent with the hopes that they would be forwarded to the school committee, the State of Rhode Island passed a new anti-bullying law in an amendment to the “Safe Schools Act”. It charged the Rhode Department of Education with developing a new model anti-bullying policy to be adopted by all school districts. In an effort to get out in front of other school districts, we decided to compare our recommendations to the requirements of the new model policy as outlined by the state legislature. Our recommendations either meet or exceed the expected outcome from the RIDOE.

Within the first month of school, we have already presented to the School Committee Rule and Regulations sub-committee where they asked for two slight teaks to the recommended policy. We will then present the tweaks one more time this month and expect to go to the full committee before Thanksgiving break. We are planning a special school committee night where the only item on the agenda is a community wide adoption of an aggressive and far reaching anti-bullying policy that communicates how much we care about our children and their well being. Tune into my twitter account for more updates this month @JayRMasterson.

Note: The recommendations are as follows:

• Strong policy statement about how committed we are against anti-bullying

• Expanded and through definition of bullying

• Definition of where “at school” means

• Definition of electronic media. This includes the scenario where bullying takes place in cyber space outside of school hours, but as soon as it effects one person in school it becomes a school issue

• Mandatory social skills training as a 1st level intervention for a student who is found to be bullying

• Electronic form for reporting bullying on the district website tied to a school officials email account

• Clear procedures that will outline the full investigation of a bullying incident

• A strong partnership between the school department and community law enforcement

• Anti-bullying program with a school official and law enforcement official that will train each school with one consistent message

• Requirement for each school to report to the superintendent semi-annually bullying incidents with the superintendent then reporting to the school committee semi-annually


The South Hadley Task Force and learning community are always in our thoughts. It was a complete tragedy that took place in their community. Let us hope that the rest of the world learns from them just as we have so as to prevent this from happening again.