Clarkstown Task Force Targets Bullying in Schools

The three subcommittees of the Clarkstown Central School District’s Dignity for All Task Force presented summaries of their work and recommendations to prevent bullying on Thursday.

The Programs, Accountability and Cyberbullying subcommittees were formed in January and have a total of 90 members. Kevin Horan, Felix Festa Middle School principal of School A facilitated the task force.

 “In February and March the committees met. They’re teachers, administrators, school board members, PTA members, parents, local law enforcement, town officials. We tried to hit all the stakeholders in the community so we had good representation across all committees,” explained Horan.   

The task force was formed as a result of legislation signed in September 2010 by then Gov. David Patterson that gave school districts a deadline of July 1, 2012 to have programs in place to deal effectively with preventing bullying.

Howard Mandel chairperson of psychological services for the school district, led the  programs committee which identified needs met by programs and unmet needs or those that lacked programs to deal with them. It recommended enhancements to programs to identify risk and protective factors dealing with bullying prevention. Existing programs in all the district’s schools were researched as well as those in the community. The results were cataloged and provided online. Dignity for All Task Force documents can be found on the district’s website, www.ccsd.edu, under the Community heading.

The program subcommittee has already implemented one recommendation. In two weeks middle schoolers will attend a date violence awareness and education program presented by the Rockland Family Shelter.  

Deb Tarantino, assistant principal at Clarkstown South High School, chaired the cyberbullying committee which looked at the board’s draft policy on cyberbullying, prepared a working definition of cyberbullying and applied that definition to different situations.

“We were all speaking a new language. We had to teach ourselves a new language,” said Tarantino. Subcommittee members were familiar with “traditional” bullying, but not with cyberbullying.

 They determined there were two critical issues. Parents and students needed to be educated about cyberbullying, the technology it used and social networks. Parents had to be made aware of the warning signs when their child is being cyberbullied. The group also looked at addressing the cyber-bystander in the cyberbully world.

One of the recommendations the subcommittee made is to post rules of behavior for using technology or “netiquette.”“We need rules for our students so they know what is expected,” said Tarantino. Another initiative begins in the fall, when students will trained as “go-to students,” someone who other students can speak to when they know of someone else who is being targeted or cyberbullied. Tarantino said the pervasiveness of the technology means if a student is bullied on a social networking site in the evening by the next morning 70% of the school is aware of the incident.

Clarkstown North High School Assistant Principal Amy Franchi chaired the accountability subcommittee which reviewed the board’s draft bullying prevention policy, district’s code of conduct and schools’ bullying report forms.

“We applied them to real incidents that occur with our students to see if the policy and code of conduct could work for us.” Franchi said. The documents need revisions to conform to Dignity for All requirements. The subcommittee determined that a  standardized bullying incident report should be used, one for elementary schools and another for the middle and high schools. A common form will be easier for the district to track incidents.

Horan expects the subcommittees’ ideas will be presented in the fall to the school board so its members can review the proposed Bullying Prevention Policy and changes to the Code of Conduct and incorporate them into the district’s policies. He says the task force will also research funding sources to support programs and continue to look for programs in the community that could benefit students.

Schools Superintendent Margaret Keller-Cogan thanked the committee chairpersons and their subcommittees for their hard work and for “supporting a healthier environment for students.” She said the recommendations put forward by each group showed that “the Clarkstown School District as a system is not a bystander. I really think we have taken great step forward.”

The subcommittees will meet again on Monday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. The program committee will gather at the District’s Central Offices, the accountability committee will convene in the Clarkstown North High School Library and the cyberbullying committee will assemble in the Clarkstown South High School Library.

Prior to the task force meeting, the Clarkstown Board of Education met to vote on the BOCES budget and elect its representative to the BOCES board. A quorum of board members attended and approved the $8.3 million BOCES budget for 2011-2012 and appointed incumbent Gail Koss as Clarkstown’s representative to BOCES for a three-year term.