Tehachapi launches bullying monitoring program
BY JORGE BARRIENTOS Californian staff writer jbarrientos@bakersfield.com
As part of its agreement with the Office for Civil Rights, the Tehachapi Unified School District established a new system to track cases and investigations of bullying and harassment at its campuses.
The system tells the district if students are being targeted or if students are harassing more than one student. It also puts the district on the clock for resolving cases.
Once a bullying claim is made, for example, district officials have 24 hours to start an investigation and three days to complete it. Within five days, the district must evaluate evidence and determine how actions compare to policies.
Within seven days, the district must implement a remedy and communicate conclusions to parents, victims and students. And within no more than 30 days, district officials must write a report and review it.
According to those reports, since the start of the school year in August, officials have investigated 15 cases where 25 students were targeted, records show. Eight of those were at Jacobsen Middle School, which Seth Walsh attended.
Records also show:
* 12 were sexual harassment-related; three involved gender-based harassment.
* The cases resulted in 10 suspensions, 29 sent to counseling, one student transfered and one expelled.
* One case was categorized as severe, meaning the behavior broke the law; six cases were moderate, meaning some behaviors were criminal; and the rest were mild.
Officials said they could not discuss specific cases without revealing privacy-protected student information, but described case severity in general.
Mild: Could be when a student refers to another as "gay" in a demeaning way. Those cases usually result in counseling the student that the language is disrespectful and potentially hurtful.
Moderate: Could be when a student spreads a sexual rumor about another student that could cause the victim to become emotionally upset and unable to concentrate on classwork.
Severe: Physical, ongoing and impactful to the victim, to the point he or she could be scared to come to school and feel uncomfortable in the classroom.
In one case this school year, a bullied 12-year-old girl was photographed in the girls' locker room and the photos were posted online, according to KBAK Channel 29.
District officials said the student who took the pictures was suspended for five days.
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