- Okay, good morning, everyone.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I'm in the midst of craziness,
which I think is exactly what I said
at the beginning of the 2020 Bullying Prevention Webinar,
which is quite alarming
that we're still in this state of semi crisis.
And as I was getting ready to prepare this webinar,
I was thinking like, is this even relevant right now?
Like they have so much going on.
Is anyone gonna come to a bullying prevention webinar?
And then we did a survey that you might've participated in
about what are the current behavioral
and mental health needs you're seeing
in your schools right now.
And at least two of you, not you necessarily,
but two educators in Vermont
mentioned an increase in bullying investigations
that were having to happen during the school year.
And so it made me realize
that there probably is a connection between
the stress that everyone is feeling, students included
and an increased rate of bullying the school year.
So I'm pleased you could make the time to be here,
feel free to type into the chat box as we go.
If you have any questions,
if you'd like to unmute and ask something,
just raise your hand.
And if I don't see you feel free to interrupt.
We are gonna be recording this session.
So if you need to step away, don't stress out about that.
And Ann it's gonna put a link to the materials
in the chat box.
It is just the PowerPoint.
There were so many links embedded within this PowerPoint
that it seemed a little wild to list all of those
on the website.
But if you are in presenter mode in the slide show,
you can click on the link
or if you're in the other view within PowerPoint,
you can right click on the link and say open link,
and you'll be able to get to any of the links
that are embedded within the PowerPoint.
And if you have trouble getting any of them,
feel free to just email me.
So as we get started,
just to kind of ground us in this topic.
I'd like you to think back if it is not a painful memory
to go back to.
Think back to a bullying situation
that you either experienced yourself as a child
or a teenager, or that you experienced
with one of your students.
And as you're thinking about that experience,
what has stayed with you, and if you feel comfortable,
feel free to type it into the chat box.
Shame.
So thinking back to a bullying situation
that you've either experienced as a child
or teenager yourself,
or a bullying situation that you've experienced
with one of your students,
as part of your role as an educator,
what has stayed with you from that experience?
I think for me,
one of the experiences I had with a student
and it's something that actually came up on a call,
I was in yesterday,
was our real inability to separate the student
who was the target from the student who was bullying
because of the nature of our small school.
And that really was what the other student would have liked
and needed at the time and it was just nearly impossible.
So thinking about how bullying plays out
in smaller versus larger schools.
Embarrassment.
Insecurity.
And so a lot of our experiences as a child or a teen
often impact how we handle these situations
as educators as well.
So Caitlin talking about really
ensuring that she is boosting students' self-esteem
to help them feel more secure and like they belong.
We're gonna talk a lot about school connectedness
and belonging today.
Thank you so much for sharing
and feel free to keep typing into the chat box
if something comes up for you.
So today we are gonna be thinking about
bullying prevention on a school-wide basis.
So thinking about how we can embed our bullying prevention
strategies into our PBIS framework,
if you're from a PBIS school, your MTSS framework.
Thinking about the functions of bullying behavior
and how we can use our knowledge about function
to build some interventions and prevention strategies.
Recognizing the importance of the role of the bystander
and thinking about how we can equip students
to be upstanders not bystanders.
And then thinking about a particular focus
on cyber bullying,
some implications related to COVID
and to restorative practices.
And then I'm gonna briefly introduce a curriculum
that is put out by the National PBIS Center.
That includes a stop, walk and talk strategy,
very simple and free.
And then show you a few different bullying prevention
assessments that are part of that curriculum.
Is there anything that's not on this list of objectives
that you were hoping that we would talk about today.
And if so, you can type them into the chat box or unmute.
And before I forget,
because I don't think I have this slide in here anymore.
You'll notice that I'm not gonna refer
to the student who is bullying as a bully.
And so many of you may be familiar with this concept
that we wanna be talking about bullying behavior
and not being labeling students as a bully,
because that really stays with students
and makes them feel like that is a part of their identity
that is not gonna change.
So we really try to be careful
to refer to it as bullying behavior.
Getting to the root of the feelings behind the behavior.
And I actually kind of had this epiphany moment last night,
as I was working on this, thinking about how,
with function of behavior, we're often talking about
that they're looking for peer or adult attention,
and we've worked on reframing that a bit
to be thinking about
they're looking for peer or adult connection.
And that really made me think about
bullying behavior differently.
So if we are thinking that students who are bullying
are looking for peer connection,
how might our mindset around our interventions change
if that is our perspective?
Oh, does that look strange for you guys like pixelated?
- [Speaker] Yes.
- Okay. Let's see if I click again.
- Okay. Phew.
(Amy laughs)
So in case you're trying to make a case
for your administrator,
why bullying prevention really should be embedded
as part of everything or part of what you do in your school.
You can remind that it is part of
the Vermont Education Quality Standards
for maintaining a safe, orderly, civil,
flexible, and positive learning environment.
And that sound classroom management practices,
clear policies that are consistently
and effectively enforced
is embedded right within the educational quality standards.
And just to start with some data that is statewide data.
But if you were to do a presentation
like this for your staff,
indicating why you're doing bullying prevention efforts,
you would want to include any school level data
that you have.
So if you're, I believe it's grade seven through 12
complete the youth risk behavior survey
and the school results are available.
Should be available for you from 2019.
This is the state level data.
So really indicating that many of our students,
particularly at the middle school level,
but also at the high school level
are reporting being the target of bullying and recently,
and that there are particular groups that are reporting
that they are more frequently the target.
So female students, students of color and LGBTQ students,
most of those groups are at least twice as likely
as their counterpart to be bullied.
And then for high school students,
16% of them are reporting being the target of cyber bullying
in the past year.
And again, female students and LGBTQ students
are significantly more likely to experience cyber bullying.
And when we're referring to bullying, there is,
kind of strict definition of what bullying is within
the Vermont policies around this.
But to simplify it,
it's a behavior that's repeated over time,
is intended to harm,
is the language that we would use with students,
but they say ridicule, humiliate intimidate,
and it can occur
before, during or after the school dance school property,
or at school related things.
But there is a piece in the policy that
this does apply to off-campus conduct
that compose a clearance, substantial interference
with another students equal access to education program.
So we sometimes will get questions about whether,
or what the school's role in cyberbullying is,
and that's where that's addressed within the policy is that,
if that cyberbullying is posing a threat to interfering
with another student's educational program,
then it becomes part of the responsibility of the school
to work with the students and the families
and if there's any, necessary police involvement
to get to the bottom of the issue and to help move past it.
Investigate.
So we're probably pretty familiar
with the different types of bullying,
but making sure that when we are teaching students
about bullying, that we're really making sure
they understand that it is not just
what they might see in movies of,
somebody pushing somebody against a locker
or things like that.
That it can involve those more covert,
less apparent actions like spreading gossip,
leaving others out, sending or posting messages
that are embarrassing about someone else.
So the good news is that when schools
are implementing some kind of form
of bullying prevention program,
it can decrease bullying by up to 25%.
What I found out yesterday, which was concerning,
but good to know is that the effectiveness
decreases the older the students get.
So students who are receiving bullying prevention lessons
in middle school and high school,
those lessons are less effective and show less impact.
Then elementary schools students receiving lessons
on bullying prevention.
So I think that kind of boosts the importance
of our elementary school students
becoming really comfortable with those content
and with their skills related to being an upstander
before they get to middle school and high school,
where they get a little more jaded
and less willing to accept this kind of content.
But I do have a few examples in here
of ways that might kind of draw some of those older students
into this area of interest.
So as adults in school, the way the Vermont policy reads
in terms of responsibilities of the adults.
If they are witnessing the bullying
is to stop the behavior immediately, separate the students,
really make sure we're giving the targeted students
the attention that they need and making sure that they feel
emotionally and physically safe
and then following whatever your policy
is within your school,
in terms of notifying the appropriate school staff
who are designated to do an investigation
and create a safety plan if there is need for that.
So I'm gonna do a quick poll. I'll open up.
Do you currently have a bullying prevention strategy
or action plan or curriculum at your school?
And if so, who is responsible
for your bullying prevention efforts?
Is it someone like a school counselor or the administrator,
the PBIS team, the school resource officer, teachers,
or all of the above?
Or some of the above, I guess.
(Amy laughs)
(phone ringing)
And I forgot to introduce myself at the beginning,
for those of you who don't know me, I'm Amy Wheeler Sutton.
I'm the co-director of the best project in Vermont PBIS.
I'm currently without a co.
So I dunno if I can call myself the co-director,
but we will have a new person in the role
starting in January.
And I was previously a school counselor
at the Dothan Brook School in Hartford.
So all of you have responded.
I'm gonna end the poll and try to share the results.
Most of you indicated that your school counselors
are responsible for the bullying prevention efforts
at your school.
Some administrators, some PBIS team,
and some have said all of the above.
So it's something to think about,
who's gonna hold the work in your school.
And the best case scenario
is that everyone feels responsible for bullying prevention.
However, it might not be realistic
that everyone's gonna be involved in the planning
and implementation of your bullying prevention work.
So the recommendation is that a team holds this work
and without wanting to create an additional team
thinking about where this might lie.
So if you have a PBIS team,
does it make sense for them to make this part of their work
or not, depending on the scope of your teams.
So I'm gonna close out of the poll
and talk a little bit about if you are an PBIS school,
thinking about where bullying prevention might fit in.
So thinking about how you can tie
your bullying prevention efforts
to your school-wide expectations
and how that explicit teaching,
defining teaching acknowledging
of your school-wide expectations
actually helps to prevent bullying.
So the research shows that when schools have really clear
expectations, both school-wide about everything,
but also about kindness and respect
and caring behaviors that you wanna see
amongst your students.
And that you're explicitly teaching them the skills
to be able to exhibit those expectations,
that reduces bullying in and of itself.
So even if you didn't have a formal
bullying prevention program
by the pure nature of implementing universal PBIS well,
you are contributing to your bullying prevention efforts.
Also, we know that PBIS schools
are often looking at their data
and are really able to catch things early.
So someone might notice,
wow, it seems like this particular student
is often targeting this other student
with aggressive behaviors.
Could this be turning into bullying
and be able to act on it more quickly,
because you're really facile with using your data.
Also those strong classroom systems.
So making sure that routines and expectations
are really clear within the classroom
and that teachers are using those strong classroom
management strategies, like active supervision,
moving, skinning, interacting with students
and making their classroom a really inviting community
that everyone feels like they belong to.
And then of course,
it's ideal if you have a actual bullying prevention
curriculum that you are using that as evidence-based.
So we're gonna talk mostly about the PBIS one today,
but if you have other bullying prevention curriculums
that you are using in your school
that you'd like to share with people,
feel free to type those into the chat box.
I listened to a webinar from a woman in North Carolina
who did a randomized control study of the second step,
bullying prevention curriculum for middle school.
And the results were really impressive
and they followed those students into high school
and the reduced rates of bullying
in the schools that implemented
the second step bullying prevention curriculum,
even as high schoolers had fewer rates of bullying
than those in the control schools.
So that was really exciting for me to read.
And then I'm sorry,
there's one more down here in the green that apparently
I forgot to animate.
So when we're thinking about our PBIS framework,
we also know that while we wanna do the best we can
at the universal level,
there are going to be students who still struggle
with bullying behavior who are still targeted by bullying.
And we wanna have some interventions ready for,
to be able to put into place for students,
both who are exhibiting bullying behavior
and who are the target of bullying at the targeted
and intensive level, depending on the severity
of the nature of the situation.
And then at the base of it,
that really positive school culture
is reiterated over and over again in the research,
the greater belongingness, feelings of belongingness
and school connectedness that students have,
the less likely they are to exhibit bullying behaviors.
And the more likely students are to report
when they see bullying behaviors.
And I think what people are really struggling with this year
is connected to this positive school culture.
There's so much stress and pressure right now
that it is feeling really hard
to maintain that positive school culture.
And over the course of the last, however many months,
I've lost track now of school being interrupted
has probably had an impact
on the way that students are feeling connected to school,
regardless of how well the teachers and the administrators
are doing to build that positive school culture,
just by the nature of being in and out.
And especially for our middle school, high school students
who really had a lot of disruption even last year,
are probably feeling pretty disconnected.
So in PBIS, we're always coming back
and thinking about function.
So what is the why behind the behavior?
And like Caitlin mentioned,
what is the feeling behind the behavior?
So when we're thinking about function,
we know that all behavior is looking for to get something
or to avoid something.
And so when we're thinking about bullying in particular,
students who are bullying can have a range of functions
for their behavior.
So they might be looking to get attention
from the bystanders.
They might be looking to get a reaction or attention
from the target of the bullying behavior.
They might kind of boost themselves up from that bullying
and kind of elevate their own status.
They might be looking to get items, activity, or status,
and that can kind of be lumped in with that function,
or it might be to avoid one of those as well.
So they have, may have had some unsuccessful friendships
or interactions with their peers,
and now are bullying to push those peers away
for fear of more failure in those relationships.
So it's not that we can point to one of these
in every bullying situation.
We really want to think through the situation,
think through the student and have a conversation
with the student about exploring
what they might be trying to get out of that behavior
and what they are feeling
that is causing them to exhibit those behaviors.
However, the main function
that most students who are bullying are looking for
is that peer attention.
So when we're designing our bullying intervention
and prevention strategies,
we wanna be really thinking about
how can our students get peer attention
in a positive pro-social way.
So how can we prevent them from needing
to seek out that peer attention in a negative way,
and how can we use peer attention to be the reinforcer
when students are exhibiting our expected behavior?
So if you're a school,
one of your school expectations is be respectful or be kind,
or we are caring.
How can we really ensure that our reinforcement for that
is not just adult attention through our reinforcement system
or through our adult, positive language?
How can we make sure that they are getting peer attention
for being kind to each other
and for standing up for one another?
How can we help students to recognize
when bullying is happening and remove
any praise or attention or recognition
that students are getting for the bullying?
And then this is what I was talking about earlier,
when I was thinking about last night is,
what happens to our mindset
when we replace the word attention with connection.
So if the main function of bullying
is to connect with peers,
how can we give the students who are bullying
the skills to be able to connect
in a way that is not hurtful and harmful?
So if there's any reactions to those questions,
they're more rhetorical questions than anything else,
but I think that's why bullying situations
are so challenging is we're really good about
amping up adult attention.
So we know when students are exhibiting
other kinds of behaviors.
How to give them more adult attention
for the positive behavior.
Maybe putting into place something like check in, check out
where they're getting a lot of adults attention
right in the morning, they're checking in.
They're getting more frequent feedback throughout the day,
but that's all by adults.
And so how can we design some interventions
that enables students to get positive peer attention?
So in the chat box,
do you have any strategies at your school for this purpose?
So reinforcing students with peer attention
when they are being respectful, being kind, being caring,
whatever your school-wide expectation related to,
how they interact with one another.
Do you have any strategies
where students are able to get more
and get positive peer attention
when they exhibit those expected behaviors?
And if not, do you have any ideas
for how students might access more positive peer attention?
So Caitlin sharing that this week,
she's gathering information for a possible bullying case.
And what she's seeing is that the one being bullied
is really trying to seek connection with peers
in unexpected ways.
So creating a social skills group,
facilitating lunch groups to build friendships.
So we all know students who really struggle socially
and either are perceiving bullying
when it's not actually happening,
because their social perceptions are not quite accurate,
or they actually are being bullied
and not to be blaming the victim,
but that their own behaviors are contributing
and are drawing attention to themselves
to make them easier targets of bullying.
So how can we build up the skills of the target
to be able to, A accurately perceive the social situations
that they are in and B be able to advocate for themselves
and be able to report when bullying is happening
and to be able to have behaviors that are not making them
that easy target for bullying.
So Ellen's sharing that at her school.
Kids can give each other there snowflakes
when they meet the expectations.
We are kind, we are proud, we keep trying.
So they're able to recognize their peers
and that that's really great for both
the person giving the reinforcement and the receiver
and that the kids are responsible for reading
the snowflakes out loud during the gatherings.
That's great.
And I think, you know, a version of that
for middle high school is something like a shout out board
or something where it doesn't have to feel so awkward
that they're literally giving their peers
something when they're doing something kind of respectful,
but they are able to write and put that up publicly
when they wanna recognize someone for their kind
or respectful behaviors.
So we'll keep thinking about this as we continue
into the webinar.
So the other really key piece of the research about bullying
is the importance of the bystander and the role they play
or don't play in bullying stopping.
So this research from a long time ago now
says that 50% of bullying situations stop
when a peer intervenes.
So how can we boost the skills of our bystanders
to be able to feel empowered to intervene?
So I mentioned, I will give some examples
for middle school, high school,
for ways that they draw students
into this bullying prevention work.
So this is just one example of a curriculum
and then kind of a reinforcement system
called, Stand For Courage.
So if you just Google, Stand For Courage,
or if you click on the link within this PowerPoint,
it's for grade six through 12,
and it's really about empowering youth leaders
within the school to teach a curriculum.
And the curriculum
really explicitly addresses how to prevent
and then respond to behavior.
And you'll notice both this curriculum
and the PBIS curriculum talk about just aggressive
or unkind or I forget the other word
that they use in the PBIS one,
rather than bullying behavior,
because we really wanna stop
any kind of unkind or aggressive behavior
before it gets to bullying.
So we don't want students to wait and say, oh,
I'm not sure if this is actually a bullying situation.
I'm not sure if I need to intervene
because maybe this is the first time this has ever happened.
We want them to intervene when unkind things are happening,
regardless of whether
it is already a bullying situation or not.
So both of these curriculums
are kind of careful to use language
that would encourage students to act early.
And then we'll talk a little bit later about the difference
between reporting and tattling,
which can be an issue at the elementary school
related to bullying prevention.
So they are teaching the curriculum and then recognizing
and nominating anyone who stands for courage,
is the way that they word it,
but other schools might use upstander language.
And then they develop kind of this menu of prizes.
And they, the examples they give
are even as large as something like
celebrity visit to school, which in Vermont,
it'd be more challenging, maybe like Bernie Sanders
or tickets to sporting events or concerts
or things like that.
So there's information on the website
about how you would build that kind of
menu of reinforcement,
but thinking about how you can build some peer based
reinforcement into that model,
if that's the function of behavior
that students are looking for peer connection.
Another cool one that I've come across
is called StopTheB.
So this is a international initiative.
It is started by these two girls.
So it's kind of teen created for teens
to raise awareness, to educate and to really inspire people
to be upstanders.
So if you go to cyberbullying.org and search for StopTheB,
you can find out more information about that one.
And again, that one's more geared toward mental high school.
So the trick is that the bystanders have to feel and believe
that they would actually make a difference in the situation
and have strong social self-efficacy
in order to be able to act and to stand up.
So we wanna be able to give students this data
that when other students stand up for people,
the bullying actually stops and help them feel empowered.
And then also help them understand what exactly they can do
to be supportive to someone who is bullying.
What actually makes it, sorry,
be supportive to someone who's being bullied.
What actually makes a difference for that person.
So the things that students mentioned were spending time
with that student, talking to them, helping them get away
from the situation or giving them advice.
And those were what they named
as the most helpful bystander actions.
And I think it's really important to share with students
that students who have experienced bullying
report that they are more likely
to find peer actions helpful,
than anything that they can do themselves
or the educators do when they are intervening.
So why do you think that that statement is true,
that students who experienced bullying
are more likely to find peer actions helpful,
than actions by educators
or anything they can do for themselves?
It's hard to know if anyone's typing.
(Amy laughs)
So Caitlin saying, they may feel that peers recognize them.
They don't feel so alone. They kind of feel seen.
And Ellen saying, they're looking for connection with peers.
Kids are more receptive to other kids giving support
rather than adults and advice coming from peers.
Definitely looking for that connection.
So another challenge is that kids at least report
that bullying sometimes gets worse
after they have told an adult.
So there's a fear around getting an adult involved
in a bullying situation,
for fear of seeming unable to handle it themselves
and maybe be perceived as even weaker
than they were perceived by the person bullying before
they told an adult.
So the more we can build up our students,
the more successful our bullying interventions are gonna be.
It doesn't mean we're not gonna include teacher training
and parent training in our efforts,
but the most bang for our buck is gonna come from students
being able to support one another.
So there was a large meta-analysis
done of bullying prevention programs, both in 2011 and 2019.
And the results did not change
over the course of those eight years.
These were the key elements that the researchers determined
actually had an impact on decreasing bullying behaviors.
So when schools have non-punitive disciplinary measures
such as PBIS and restorative practices,
their school climate is such that that bullying behaviors
are decreased when parents are included and have training
and conversations and meetings about this topic.
Wow, when teachers have training,
when videos are used within the curriculum is a key element.
When schools provide lots of opportunity
for cooperative group work.
So students are developing stronger relationships
with one another.
The longer and more intense
the bullying prevention programs are
the more impact that they had,
obviously improving supervision,
especially in places like the playground
to reduce the likelihood
that bullying behavior could occur in those locations.
Like I mentioned before,
having strong classroom management and clear expectations
and having a whole school anti-bullying policy.
They did note that peer mediation in the cases of bullying
was actually associated with an increase in victimization.
And so they do not recommend peer mediation programs,
handle bullying situations.
So moving along to think about cyberbullying.
It really is a challenging beast
because I think there are many students
that never would bully in person that do bully online.
So it's easier to lose sight
of the consequences of the bullying.
They're not face-to-face with a person and able to see
the impact that their behavior in their words is having.
There are opportunities to be anonymous
and that that really can empower and embolden someone
to be meaner than they might be
when their name is attached to it.
Significant lack of supervision.
So our fourth, fifth, sixth graders
are interacting in spaces that we never would allow them
to interact in person without that supervision,
but when it's online, it's happening.
And having less of a sense that this is real,
so that their words are actually impacting a real person.
And the fact that they have access to their technology 24/7.
So for the targets it's really inescapable
and it doesn't just end at the end of the school day,
it can reach them wherever they are.
The prevalence rates are also higher
than for in-person bullying.
So 42% of students report that they've been bullied online,
and one in four have had happened more than once
in the form of meaner threatening messages.
And 20% have admitted to cyber bullying others,
and they are not telling adults.
So 50% have not told their parents
about an online bullying incident.
So when we're thinking about preventing cyberbullying,
obviously starting with digital citizenship lessons,
and there's a link here to some good lessons
on digital citizenship.
So making sure they understand their rights
and responsibilities as internet users,
privacy considerations, how to block and report,
because a lot of this cyberbullying
is not actually even happening by someone that they know.
So things like gaming apps
or other social media,
they're now connected with a broad range of people
that are not even,
someone they're going to school with as well.
So making sure they understand and feel empowered
to block or report people
and all of those kind of basics of digital citizenship.
Teaching about what healthy screen time consists of
and how to take a break.
And when they might notice within themselves
that they need to take a break from screen time.
And what are some ways
that they can use technology positively
to kind of counteract the negativity that comes along
with the internet and social media?
Again, empowering bystanders
and helping your students think about themselves
as bystanders even in that online environment
and really educating about the effects.
So we know there are lots of,
highly publicized news stories about students
who committed, oh sorry,
who died by suicide as a result of cyberbullying.
And so thinking about how we can educate students
about the effects of bullying on others,
and then the cyber bullying piece is really critical
in terms of engaging and educating families
about how they can keep their kids safe online
from cyberbullying,
but also how they can ensure that,
their children are not cyberbullying others.
And when we see, or when cyberbullying is reported to us,
taking it seriously, just as seriously as we would,
as if it were in person
and encouraging our students to keep any evidence,
to not delete things, to block and report
both to the site itself and to real live adults.
So they might think, well, I've reported it to the site
I'm done, but they really should be connecting with an adult
and person that they know.
So thinking about the impact that COVID-19 has had
on cyberbullying, this is a little bit outdated now,
but this startup company, when analyzing websites,
chat sites, social media, gaming,
recorded a 900% increase in the hate speech
directed toward Chinese people and a 40% rise
in online toxicity just as a whole among teens and children
from the beginning of COVID.
So it's really a heightened environment right now.
Some, reasons why that might be,
like I mentioned before,
that lack of feeling connected to school,
feelings of social isolation
and not knowing the best ways to connect with others,
simple boredom,
and then also that heightened stress
and emotions that students are feeling right now,
and that families are feeling.
So parents are feeling more stressed right now,
maybe paying less attention to students or their children
and having less ability to supervise and manage.
And especially when online learning was happening,
they just felt like, my kids on the computer all the time,
I can't possibly supervise and monitor everything
that they're doing online.
And for the students,
they're very reliant on their technology right now.
And so they're much less likely to report
that anything is happening
because they don't want their devices
or their accounts taken away.
So thinking about how we can react to bullying situations
and take them seriously without scaring students,
that they are going to lose access
to all of their social media,
if they report that bullying is happening on those sites.
And then of course,
especially at the beginning of COVID
the xenophobia that was associated with the virus.
So let's take a minute for you guys to share
what your experience has been with bullying
either in-person bullying or cyberbullying
during this pandemic time.
And has your school done anything differently
to try to prevent or intervene in bullying situations
during this time period?
So I'll give you a minute to type into the chat box.
Awesome.
So Sarah has asked her tech integration specialists
to co-teach lessons with her,
and that's been really helpful.
And I think it brings a level of seriousness to the students
to know that this is a real issue.
When I was a school counselor had an issue of sexting
and we had a school resource officer
that we had a really great relationship with.
And so I co-taught some internet safety lessons
with her related to that.
So Grant's seen an increase in racist speech,
related to the political context.
And I think the Southern Poverty Law Center,
has a lot of data around that as well.
So in the interest of time, I'm gonna keep going,
but please feel free to keep typing into the chat box,
especially if you've had any creative ideas
to help prevent or intervene in bullying
during this time period.
I just wanna briefly mention
many of our schools are moving towards
restorative practices, which is fantastic.
However, there are some implications
for bullying situations.
So one of them, which I hadn't even thought of
until it was brought up in a meeting yesterday,
was waiting for any kind of restorative practice response
until after the investigation is complete.
And when thinking about whether a restorative approach
is appropriate in this situation,
remembering that bullying is actually a form of abuse.
It's not a conflict between two peers.
So our first reaction should not be to bring the two kids
together to work it out.
They're not, they don't have equal power in that situation.
It's not a peer conflict.
It is an abusive situation.
And if a restorative circle
were to be improperly facilitated,
that kind of face-to-face meeting between the target
and the student with the bullying behavior
can really escalate the bullying situation
and almost serve to reinforce that power imbalance
between the students.
So this link that's down below is a resource
specifically around bullying prevention
and restorative practices.
However, there are situations in which a restorative circle
would be useful in a bullying situation,
but all of these characteristics need to be met.
So there has to be voluntary participation
on the part of everyone involved.
Everybody has to be ready
to hear the harm that occurred to make a plan.
The person with the bullying behavior
has to be ready to accept responsibility for their behavior.
The target needs to feel safe.
They need to be able to invite support people.
They need to participate in preparation meetings
before the actual circle
and the circles need to be run
by a trained adult facilitator.
So this is not a situation
where you would have a student facilitator
or someone who isn't trained.
And the bottom line is if the person who has been harmed
doesn't wanna meet face-to-face, it should not happen.
That doesn't mean a restorative approach can occur,
but they need to be separate meetings
and still with a trained adult facilitator.
So this is the curriculum from the pbis.org website.
I don't have time to go into great detail about it,
but you can find it on the website.
It is free.
It is the curriculum,
and also some other kind of systems level things
that you would want to have happen
in conjunction with the curriculum.
So I'm not gonna do the poll right now,
and I know some of you have seen the curriculum before,
and I believe Fair Haven Elementary School
was using this curriculum at least pre COVID.
I'm not sure if others have seen it or using it,
but you can type into the chat box.
But like I said, it gives you both some resources
to be able to build your students skills
in the form of curriculum
and tying to your school-wide expectations,
and also gives some skills
and recommendations for your faculty and staff.
So it's a really simple skill to be teaching the students.
There's an elementary version and a middle school version.
They call it stop, walk and talk.
And so they teach routines for stopping,
walking and talking.
So the teach the students,
if someone is directing a problem behavior toward you
or someone else, give them a stop signal.
So your students decide what that looks like and sounds like
for the whole school.
And then if they do not stop
after the stop signal, walk away.
So they're removing the reinforcement
for that problem behavior.
And then if that problem behavior still continues
then to tell an adult,
and it helps them distinguish between talking to an adult
and reporting, versus tattling.
So tattling would be when they have not used
their stop or walk techniques
before getting help from an adult,
or if their main goal is to get the other person in trouble.
That's a big clue that they are tattling and not reporting.
But what we know is that 64% of children who were bullied
did not report it.
And we know that that is often related to fear
of retaliation or response or getting worse.
The other important piece is making sure that
students have a stopping routine.
So what are they gonna do when they are told to stop,
to not escalate that situation?
So stop take a deep breath, go about your day.
If you're told to stop something, no big deal.
Even if they don't agree with the stop message.
So if they don't agree,
then they might choose to get help from an adult
and say, so-and-so asked me to stop,
I wasn't doing anything wrong,
but the takeaway is, if someone asked you to stop, you stop.
You might need to get more help from an adult,
but you stop that behavior right away.
And then it also gives a script for the adults.
How do they respond to the target or the upstander?
And then how do they respond to the student
who was bullying?
And then does an example lesson from their curriculum
relating bullying to a candle
where when you cut off the oxygen, you cut out the attention
that the person who's bullying is getting for the behavior,
the behavior stops.
So giving students some visual cues about this.
And there's some great videos down in the link below
that have people talking about this curriculum
and how they used it.
I think the really key piece,
especially for middle school, high school
is utilizing students and students with social power.
So students that others are going to listen to,
involve them right from the beginning
when you were doing something new
around bullying prevention,
because it has to be turned on its head,
that it is cool to do the right thing
and to stand up against bullying rather than being
the people exhibiting the bullying behavior.
And one of the differences
between elementary and middle high school
is that when elementary students are asked,
who in their classroom, exhibit bullying behavior,
they name different people
than who they want to be friends with.
At middle school, high school, they name the same people.
So who are the people with bullying behavior
and who do you want to be friends with?
They name the same people.
So by the time that turn happens
in middle school, high school,
it's the people with the social power
and the desirability that are exhibiting
the bullying behaviors.
So the curriculum gives you a format
for having a student leadership team
and engaging them in this work from the beginning.
And then I also just wanted to add this idea
of the high school leaders going down to the middle school,
can often be a helpful arrangement.
And then it gives you
this really nice tie-in to how this looks
within your PBIS framework,
making sure you're serving students
both to gain some motivation from the adults,
that this really is an issue
that they should take action about,
but also to target strategies to the needs of the school.
And they have a little checklist for you for implementation
to see where you're at.
They have examples of a student survey that you can put out.
You also could put out your school climate survey
and they are showing that it is successful.
So the trial in 2009, they saw a 72% reduction
in bullying behaviors
of students who are at risk of bullying.
So I have a bunch more resources here for you
at the end of the slide show.
Oh sorry. I thought I added, oh yes.
This CASEL webinar in the middle is a really great one
specifically related to COVID.
And then I will just ask if you have any questions,
if you are thinking you might be interested in implementing
the PBIS Bullying Prevention Curriculum that I introduced,
or if you already,
or are interested in implementing
the Second Step Bullying Prevention Curriculum,
please let me know.
We'd love to learn more about how it's going
and maybe highlight a school within this webinar next year.
And as you are signing off, if you have any questions,
please let me know.
And it always helps me when I'm leaving a webinar
to just write down on a piece of paper, one action step
I would like to take following the webinar.
And if you'd like to share that into the chat box,
please feel free.
Hopefully that was helpful for you.
And that I haven't talked your ears off.
And thanks for being here.