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As we near the end of the school year—and you begin to plan for next year—I want to revisit some of the services I can provide to assist your bullying prevention efforts in your schools and maintain compliance with the Youth Bullying Prevention Act of 2012 (YBPA).
It’s also again time for schools to report data on all bullying incidents to the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, as required by the YBPA. The designated bullying point of contact for each school should have received an email on May 15th with your school’s credentials to complete the OHR bullying survey. The survey must be completed by August 15th, or your school will not be in compliance. Please reach out to mmartinez@childtrends.org if you have any questions about accessing or completing the survey.
One of the YBPA’s requirements is for schools to conduct annual training for staff on bullying prevention. As a reminder, OHR offers in-person Bullying Prevention and Intervention Training. Per request, the OHR Bullying Prevention Team will walk your school staff through the Bullying Prevention and Intervention in DC Educational Institutions: Training Toolkit. This training includes information on the Youth Bullying Prevention Act’s (YBPA) policy requirements, the District’s definition of bullying, guidance on identifying acts of bullying, and the YBPA’s reporting requirements and appeals procedures. All District schools are welcome to schedule a training, including charter schools. Please email me at ernest.shepard@dc.gov for more details and to schedule a training.
Additionally, to support your planning for next year, I want to disseminate some resources on assessing school climate and bullying prevention efforts in your school. Understanding what your school does well and identifying areas for improvement can help determine the next steps to improving your school’s climate. Family engagement is a key to improving school climate and preventing bullying; research shows that including parents in bullying prevention initiatives can increase their impact.
Setting the Foundation for Safe, Supportive, and Equitable School Climates. This toolkit from Child Trends provides a series of tipsheets that provide best practices, along with critical, equity-driven questions to consider when assessing school climate. This toolkit is borne from the Improving School Climate initiative and can inform strategies aimed at improving school climate.
Measuring School Climate: A Toolkit for Districts and School. This toolkit from the Colorado Education Initiative identifies the ties between positive school climates and effective bullying prevention initiatives. This toolkit includes guidelines for measuring school climate, a readiness assessment, advice on obtaining parental consent, and guidance on collecting data and presenting results.
Bullying Prevention and the Parent Involvement Model. This journal article provides a parent involvement model that can be used as a framework in implementing bullying prevention programs. This model discusses the roles of parents and other members of the school community, including school counselors, in implementing effective bullying prevention initiatives.
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