Bullying Incidents Down in Kinnelon Schools

Kinnelon Public Schools Interim Superintendent Diane DiGiuseppe said district-wide incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) have gone down sharply this year compared to last year.

State laws moderating HIB incidents and dictating appropriate follow-up and treatment from school administrations went into effect in time for the 2011-12 school year following the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi in September 2010.

"There were a lot of confusions" during the law's first year, DiGiuseppe said. "I think across the board the state's provided additional training [this year to teach] what i the difference between normal student conflict and actual HIB incidents."

Throughout all Kinnelon schools there were 96 investigations and 31 confirmed acts of HIB during the 2011-12 school year. There have been 34 investigations and only four confirmed acts of HIB thus far in the 2012-13 school year in the district.

"It's a significant drop, both in investigation and in confirmation," DiGiuseppe said, at least partly due to the fact that "now people understand better what falls under HIB."

DiGiuseppe said she believes HIB reporting has gone down in most districts as education improves among teachers and administrators. "People are reporting student behavior as HIB less because they’re understanding what's normal student conflict and what’s bullying. There’s always going to be normal student conflict," she said.

The distinction between HIB and conflict is that the bully has a specific trait they are targeting in a case of HIB. "Did you do this because this person has a particular characteristic that you’re targeting? A physical characteristic? Is it religious in nature? Is it ethnic in nature? Is this normal student conflict or is there a targeted reason?" she said.

Full Values

Another factor, she said, is the expansion of character education programs in the district. The program is called Kinnelon Full Values. A PDF detailing Full Values can be found on the Kinnelon School District website, or in the Photos section of this article.

Part of the Full Value program is a contract between students and teachers called "The Being," which sets the expectations for how students behave toward teachers and classmates. While each classroom can determine their own incarnation of The Being, the six core values behind it are:

• Be Here
• Be Safe
• Be Honest
• Set Goals
• Let Go and Move On
• Caring for Self and Others

The program, DiGiuseppe said, is "now completely embedded in our K-8 education, and we're moving on to the high school." High school teachers will attend training over the summer to learn ways to integrate the Full Values into their regular lesson plans.

In the younger schools, teachers in all different subjects plan lessons around the Full Values. "I just attended a choir concert at Stony Brook where the music teacher wrote a song based around the Full Values and being kind to others," DiGiuseppe said.

Last year the district won a mini-grant to purchase markers that write on glass, and students wrote what DiGiuseppe called "messages of kindness all over the windows" of the schools. "It was beautiful," she said.

The benefits are coming across in surprising ways. Young children, DiGiuseppe said, are learning to articulate their feelings in honest but non-aggressive ways, ways which confront violations of the Full Values without being accusatory, in group discussions with the entire class.

"We are teaching kids to deal with conflict differently. Between educating kids within the Full Value system and just giving kids an opportunity to talk it out rather than have a conflict with each other, and the fact we better understand the law, these have all contributed to fewer investigations and fewer incidents of HIB," DiGiuseppe said.

Of those 96 investigations during the 2011-12 school year, 19 of them were at Kinnelon High School. Three of those 19 investigations were confirmed incidents of HIB, less than one-tenth of the 31 total incidents that year.