Violence Up in Cherry Hill Schools, Thanks to New Bullying Reporting

After the new state anti-bullying law went into effect last year, Cherry Hill schools mirrored the state trend, seeing a huge increase in what’s defined as violence in an annual state report on violence, vandalism, substance abuse and weapons in schools released by the Department of Education.

But the numbers may be misleading, local school officials said.

Cherry Hill’s violence statistics tripled from 2010-11 to 2011-12, due almost entirely to 144 harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) incidents, which were lumped in alongside sex offenses, assaults and fights in schools.

Apart from the Barclay Early Childhood Center and Clara Barton Elementary School, every school in the district saw at least one incident of violence under the new reporting, including big spikes at both Cherry Hill East and West and the three middle schools.

Across all the elementary schools, though, the only incidents of violence reported were HIB incidents—and in the high schools and middle schools, HIB incidents were what drove double-digit increases.

Overall, HIB incidents in all Cherry Hill schools jumped from 23 in 2010-11 to 144 in 2011-11. Statewide, the spike was similar, with 12,024 HIB incidents reported in 2011-11, versus 3,412 the year before.

Putting those HIB incidents in the violence category creates a false perception that the schools have somehow become violent overnight, district security director Mike Nuzzo said.

“They generally are nonviolent matters,” he said. “Coupling them with violence is somewhat deceiving.”

In fact, the vast majority of HIB incidents in the district—115 out of 144—were verbal, while only 23 were labeled as being physical.

To get a better handle on what’s happening with bullying versus other violence in schools, it would make more sense to shift HIB incidents completely out of the violence column and into their own, Nuzzo said.

“I would love to see them place HIB in a separate category,” he said. “That would give a more accurate assessment.”

Otherwise, violence in Cherry Hill schools is trending down—there were fewer fights, assaults and criminal threats in the district in 2011-12 as compared with 2010-11. The only statistic that ticked up in 2011-12 was sex offenses, which went up to three incidents after just one the previous school year.

That decline is another reason Nuzzo said HIB stats should be shifted out of the violence category.

“If I’m a parent reading those stats, I don’t get that impression,” he said. “It’s not a true picture of what’s happening in the schools.”

There are a number of programs going on throughout the district to help combat the problem of school violence—besides in-school efforts such as the Week of Respect, which just took place, and school violence awareness initiatives, Nuzzo said school officials maintain a good working relationship with the Cherry Hill Police Department, in an effort to connect what’s going on in the community with what happens in the schools.

That way, police pass on incidents that could potentially spill into the schools, frequently the same night or early in the morning before the school day starts, which allows school officials to get ahead of any potential problems, Nuzzo said.

“We can focus on that immediately,” he said. “That’s been very helpful.”

While that works in the short-term, the district also tries to avoid reacting to one-year spikes in any one subset of violence or vandalism, Nuzzo said, focusing instead on 10-year trends in the annual state reports to see where resources need to be concentrated.

“Focusing on one year’s report doesn’t give you the necessary tools to combat the problem,” he said.

Complete statistics on Cherry Hill and other districts are available on the Department of Education's violence, vandalism and substance abuse reports.