Schools

Bullying: How Lake Forest, Lake Bluff Schools Tackle The Issue

Patch asked suburban school district across the Chicago area how they handle bullying in their communities.

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LAKE FOREST, IL — As part of its National Bullying Prevention Month coverage, Patch contacted administrators of dozens of public school districts in Chicago area suburbs to see how they handle bullying in their communities. Across the country, bullying is a problem that affects more than one in five students. While may boil it down to the idea that "kids will be kids," studies show that students who are bullied are at increased risk for anxiety, depression, poor self-image, mental health and behavior problems and poor school adjustment.

Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Patch posed questions about bullying to administrators of Lake Bluff Elementary School District 65, Lake Forest Elementary School District 67 and Community High School District 115 earlier this month. Patch only received answers from the superintendent of District 65.

The responses from District 65 Superintendent Jean Sophie have been included below, with the questions in bold and her responses in italics.

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  • What is the district’s policy with regard to bullying and cyberbullying?
  • Please see Board Policy 7:180 posted on our website at http://www.lb65.org/boe/policies
  • What is the discipline process for students who bully others?
  • When an incident of bullying has occurred, a member of the administrative team reviews the
    incident and meets with the affected students. Discipline is handled on a case-by-case basis consistent with Illinois School Code
  • How many reported incidents of bullying does the district have this year/last year/by
    grade level?
  • No information about this question is available without jeopardizing the confidentiality of
    students who have reported incidents of bullying to building and district administrators.     (In response to a public records request, Sophie later said there had been three bullying incidents in 2013, two in 2015, four in 2014, one in 2017, four in 2018 and one so far in 2019.)
  • What constitutes a reportable bullying incident? How does the district define bullying?
    (In other words, when does it rise to the level of being reportable?)
  • Bullying is defined in Board Policy 7:180. (According to the board policy, adopted in 2015: "Bullying includes cyber-bullying and means any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act or conduct, including communications made in writing or electronically, directed toward a student or students that has or can be reasonably predicted to have the effect of one or more of the following: 1. Placing the student in reasonable fear of harm to the student’s person or property. 2. Causing a substantially detrimental effect on the student’s physical or mental health. 3. Substantially interfering with the student’s academic performance. 4. Substantially interfering with the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by a school. Aggressive conduct toward other students that is not severe or pervasive shall not be deemed as bullying, but may constitute gross disobedience or misconduct leading to discipline under Board Policy 7:190, Student Discipline, of any student who engages in such behavior. Students who engage in bullying conduct also shall be disciplined under Board Policy 7:190.")
  • What measures are the district taking to be proactive about bullying?
  • Bullying prevention, as required by law, is a part of our curriculum and school programs.
    Additionally, we have several proactive programs including our recently introduced Speak Up! Program with Gaggle that supports students proactively
  • What is the district doing to help students who have been the victim of bullying?
  • Students who have been the target of bullying are unique and we work with each student to
    make sure that their unique needs are met. This can range from an individual student safety plan to social work support or check ins, to a simple conversation with a teacher. It depends on the individual student
  • Some schools use apps — Ok2Say, STOPIt, BullyTag, etc. — or some other system that allows students to anonymously report bullying. Does your district do this? What kind of volume are schools seeing? Has that increased/decreased?
  • Our District recently began using the Speak Up! Program provided by Gaggle. Reports about
    usage are unavailable for this school year.

The Lake Forest elementary school district declined to answer any of the questions. Instead responding with a link to board policies, student handbook and a form that it described as a "confidential incident reporting tool." (The district website said the form is for high school students to report concerns anonymously. It can only be accessed from a district account and its confidentiality could not be confirmed.) District 67 also said it had no records of how many incidents of bullying had occurred.

Lake Forest High School officials did not respond to the questions at all.

Find out what's happening in Lake Forest-Lake Blufffor free with the latest updates from Patch.


No Bully/Patch News Partner

The Menace Of Bullies: Patch Advocacy Reporting Project

As part of a national reporting project, Patch has been looking at society's roles and responsibilities in bullying and a child's unthinkable decision to end their own life in hopes we might offer solutions that save lives.

Bullying In Lake Forest-Lake Bluff: Share Your Stories With Patch »

Do you have a story to tell? Are you concerned about how your local schools handle bullies and their victims? Email us at bullies@patch.com or share your views in the comments.

Selected Stories From The Project

Patch staff contributed.

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