Manchester Schools Give Self Good Grades on Anti-Bullying

Out of a possible score of 75, the Manchester Township School District earned a score of 70  for compliance with the state's Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, according to a self assessment presented at the township Board of Education meeting on July 31.

Kevin Burger, the District's Anti-Bullying Specialist and Director of Student and Administrative Services, said the self-assessment covered the core elements of Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) policies -- HIB programs, Training on the Policy, Other Staff Instruction and Training Programs, Curriculum and Instruction on HIB, HIB Personnel, School Level HIB Incident Reporting Procedure, HIB Investigation Procedure and HIB Reporting.

Scores for individual schools ranged from a low of 67 to a high of 73.

"We've been doing a lot more than we gave ourselves credit for," said Burger.  "We want to create a positive school climate."

In the 2011-2012 school year, there were 102 confirmed cases of HIB in the district.  In 2012-2013, there were 53 cases.

Over that time, Burger said they trained staff extensively.  In the two years, the district implemented 94 training programs for teachers, other district staff, parents and volunteers, as well as food service staff and bus drivers.

"We found we could do a better job of training volunteers," said Burger.  "That will be our project over the next several years."

The district increased anti-bullying specialists to two in each school and those specialists were trained out of the district.  Student programs also were increased, from 15 in the first year to 66 last school year. In addition, HIB was a topic on the agenda at every faculty meeting once a month.

"We had a tremendous increase in awareness of parents," said Burger.  "Kids are coming forward to administrators saying this is wrong and something needs to be done.  Some as young as kindergarten."

Berger said they learned a lot in the first two years.  They found they were getting a number of HIB cases from transportation so they increased supervision on buses.  They also had problems on lunch lines, which were addressed.  A student committee was started and the students came up with ideas that were implemented.

"We are extremely confident these scores are very accurate," said Burger. "We feel the grade is justified and have documentation for each of the elements."

The self-assessment must be submitted to the State Department of Education by the end of August.  The state is expected to issue the district a HIB grade in October.

"We're very pleased over the HIB," said school superintendent David Trethaway.  "Our key programs are proactive rather than reactive.  Students have reacted to the policy very well."