So take a little bit of think time
and we want you to think of an experience
in which you witnessed bullying like behavior
when you were a child and or an adult.
So anything that you've experienced.
And think a little bit about what did it look like
and how has that experience impacted you as an educator.
So we'll give you a couple minutes to think about that.
We'd love for you when you're ready
to either type your thinking into the chat box
or feel free to raise your hand and we'll go ahead
and unmute you for you to share your ideas.
So, it'll take about a minute here.
All right, folks. Any thoughts?
What does it look like? Any ideas?
Anyone would like to just type some
thoughts in the chat box?
Or feel free to unmute.
Let us know what you're thinking.
All right. Mary Ellen, thank you.
"When I was a kid,
I witnessed bullying of one family as they were poor."
Absolutely.
There's a lot of variables
that go into bullying like behavior.
Thanks for sharing, Mary Ellen.
Tracy, did you wanna go?
Okay, you could go ahead and unmute yourself.
Hi.
So, the experiences that I've had around bullying,
unfortunately is myself as a youngin,
that was kind of the way I was raised
and that's who I became, unfortunately,
through most of my middle school
and into my high school years until I dropped outta school.
So unfortunately, I've been a bully
and that's why I think I do what I do
and make sure that everybody knows that about me, you know.
I don't hide that.
It's a fact of who I am and it's who I became
and it's who I've become.
So, I think it's important to talk about
even as a 54 year old woman, you know,
that you still have to face that past sometimes.
So, that's me in a nutshell.
Well, that's a perfect segue, Tracy,
because we wanna really clarify how we use the word bully.
So, we refer to it really as bullying behavior.
Because if you think about it,
we don't wanna identify a student based on their behavior,
similar to how we say like
that student's not a red student, right?
That student may need intensive levels of support.
And we are all capable of engaging
in bullying like behavior.
It doesn't define who we are though.
So, I appreciate Tracy sharing that.
But one of the orientations we're hoping
all of you folks think about is
really that language around bully.
Again, it's bullying behavior.
Obviously, we all have that ability
to engage in that type of behavior,
and that's really what we're focusing on,
is how to work on that preventative framework.
So, thank you so much for Tracy for that segue.
Thanks folks for putting this into the chat too.
Repeated intimidation of smaller students, right.
There's often a power differential
that can occur with bullying like behavior.
You know, there's also a other folks are putting in here,
a group of high schoolers bullying a student
on the autism spectrum.
We see that frequently
where there's also disability involved
and that's one of the big areas that we're seeing
in some of our schools.
Girls about clothes, absolutely.
What they're wearing, their names. It's repeated over time.
Yeah, we'll get into the definition of bullying as well.
Intent, that's huge, right.
When we do our HHB investigations,
especially around bullying behavior.
How is that intent?
How do you measure that? How do you identify the intent?
Is it a one time accident
versus something repeated over time that's premeditated?
Lots of conversations.
Bullying behavior is not black and white.
And so that's really important for us to think about
all of the different areas of conversations
and our systems that we need to make sure
we're keeping track of that.
So, thank you all so much for sharing.
I appreciate the activity and the engagement this morning.
So. I wanna really now dive
into just what you're gonna learn today.
So our objectives really are to talk
a little bit about bullying behavior,
both in the national and local context.
So, give you some statistics.
We wanna define bullying behavior.
And then really, Amy is gonna spend much of the time
talking with all of you around strategies
to prevent bullying behavior within a PBIS framework.
So we'll be talking a little bit about functional bullying,
the role of the bystander, cyber bullying,
and then we wanna introduce you to a bullying curriculum
that may be helpful for you if you're looking for something
to implement in your school.
So, just to set the stage here
for bullying like behavior on the national scale.
So this is data from the 2019
National Center for Educational Statistics.
And I'm not gonna go ahead and read every single thing.
You have this on your slide.
But I think data's important for you to get a sense
of how prevalent this is nationally
and also to compare it with your own local data.
So currently, or since 2000, or in 2019,
one out of every five students had reported being bullying.
There's definitely a higher percentage of male
than female students reporting being physically bullied.
And this is in the notes section
of the presentation as well,
just to so that it wasn't crammed on one slide.
There's also a higher percentage of female
than male students reported
being the subjects of rumors, right.
One of you had mentioned clothing,
sort of that relational aggression
that can happen at times with our students.
Interestingly too, when you're looking
at the national statistics around where bullying occurs,
think about location, right,
majority is unstructured areas, right.
So that's again,
when you're thinking about the PBIS framework,
how are you embedding structure into your stairwells,
into your hallways,
into those areas where there's a little bit less structure.
Interestingly, it can also happen in the classroom.
Bullying looks very different
and we'll get into that as well.
And so, that's really on the national level.
A couple of other things about Vermont.
Within Vermont, you know, there's this,
many of you know about the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
Again, data from 2019.
A lot of our high school students,
about 17% of high school students
and 24% of middle school students reported
being the target of bullying.
What I have seen in schools, middle school especially,
that's a really tricky area for many of our kids socially.
Personally, from my own experience, that was a tough time.
When I was younger, you hear about the middle school.
And then recently there was, in 2017,
Bernice Garnet from the University of Vermont
did a school climate survey
with a couple of schools within Vermont.
And the article that is linked in this slide
talks a little bit about the numbers of schools in Vermont
reporting having been a victim of harassment
as well as bullying.
And so, the statistics are right there/
Within the schools that were in this study in 2017,
40% of the students survey said that
they had been a victim of one kind of harassment.
We're not gonna get into harassment today,
but they're very much linked at times.
So again, and then also from that study,
about a third of them were bullied,
had said that they were bullied.
So again, we are not, Vermont is not immune
to bullying like behavior.
And so, it's certainly something that we need to address
within our behavior systems and support.
It's really important,
again it's a little bit more national data.
And again, we like to share data
in case you need to share it with other folks.
Take this presentation,
feel free to share it with other folks.
If people are wondering,
why are we investing in bullying prevention?
Just grab this slide, share it with folks.
But again, there's statistics from a study Copeland, et al,
from 2013 that really talks about, you know,
students that are bullied.
There are 3.1 times as likely develop panic disorders,
generalized anxiety, agoraphobia,
that fear of being with other folks.
And then really, people who are both the bully
or engage in bullying like behavior
or are the victim of bullying
are about five times as likely as their peers
to develop clinical depression.
So, there's some real significant outcomes
that we want to make sure
that we're addressing within our schools.
Why is this important? In Vermont?
We have something here
that is called our Educational Quality Standards.
And within those standards it is our right
and our students write that we ensure that
we have a positive school climate for everyone in our school
and it really should be free
of hazing, harassment, bullying.
And so not only is it important,
it's actually in our educational quality standards.
And also, again, we're not gonna do a deep dive
into Vermont's model policy on the prevention of hazing,
harassment and bullying of students.
However, I wanted to share the link for all of you
should you have further questions about that.
And the state has folks that you can reach out to as well.
But again, this is significant.
There's specific procedures
that you need to go through in terms of bullying prevention
and actually during the investigation process.
And so, hopefully all of you are familiar with that.
So, let's talk a little bit about
definitions of bullying, right.
So, in our model policy bullying is certainly
something that is repeated over time.
One of you had mentioned that earlier, absolutely.
And repeated over time's a little tricky.
So this is where the conversation has to happen,
not only at your, you know,
thinking about it during this webinar,
but going back to your schools and really defining
what is repeated over time mean?
Is that who two different times,
one in the fall, one in the spring
over the course of an entire school year?
Is there a more defined timeframe?
But essentially it's repeated over time.
It's intended to ridicule, humiliate or intimidate others.
And again, it often occurs before, during,
or after school, on school property.
Again, this is direct language
coming out of the model policy.
It also includes in the policy off campus conduct.
This is really, really important as well.
So, bullying behavior and the definition and the response
also impacts what's happening outside of school
as long, you know,
if it does impact the educational access
to programming for our students.
So if there was an a cyber bullying issue happening at home
and students were coming into school
and it was impacting the learning environment,
that certainly is something we would want to address.
Again, there's various forms of bullying like behavior,
verbal and aggression, intimidation, name calling.
I have the stereotypical thing where, you know,
you're walking home alone and few kids come up to you
in the alleyway and push you around.
That certainly could be considered
bullying behavior as well,
but it's getting more complicated with technology
and we'll talk a little bit about that later.
So, I wanna jump into a quick poll.
Do you have a bullying prevention strategy
in place at your school?
Let us know.
And then if you do have that,
let us know in the poll or in the chat,
feel free to do both, who's responsible?
Do you have somebody responsible for implementing
the bullying prevention program in your school?
And while you're doing that,
just on the bottom of that last slide,
there was just a somewhat more positive statistic
and hopeful thinking that study from 2013,
that school-based bullying prevention programs
can be effective.
So, in that study they were found
to decrease bullying by up to 25%.
So while it is a very serious and pervasive issue,
our hope is that schools that can design
effective bullying prevention programs
can actually have an impact
on the rate of bullying within their schools.
-Absolutely. -And looking at the poll,
six of seven have participated
and I think two of you are in the same room.
So I'm gonna end the poll so that I can show the results.
Thanks Amy.
And I'm not sure actually,
Cassandra, if you'll be able to see them.
Sometimes other hosts can't see the responses,
but the participants should be able to see.
So we have 29%, which is two participants
don't have a bullying prevention strategy in place.
So some have checked off multiple people responsible.
So four have checked off the school counselor
and the administrators,
three have checked off the PBIS team, which is great.
That's kind of what we're gonna talk about today is,
can you embed this within your PBIS work
and not have it as a separate kind of initiative.
And then one person also checked off the teachers.
And ideally, you know, all of these people would play a role
within your bullying prevention strategies,
not necessarily your school resource officer,
if you don't have a school resource officer.
But hopefully people aren't seeing this as just,
well that's the school counselor's issue
or that's the administrator's issue.
It really takes everyone within a school
to build that climate and culture
that doesn't accept bullying as a practice.
Absolutely. Thank you, Amy.
Thanks everyone for the poll.
And that's a good segue into having
that strong foundational system, right.
So, the best thing that we can do
with bullying prevention is really focus
on our school climate.
And so as schools implementing PBIS,
we create a positive culture by really clearly
defining what the school expectations is and are.
We also teach them, we acknowledge them,
we have a data system in place, hopefully.
And that data system allows us
to identify what are the problem areas in our school.
And so again, having a strong foundation
is critical to any prevention effort in general,
whether it is bullying like behavior
or any sort of challenging or concerning behavior
that you're experiencing within your school.
Once you have that really strong foundation,
then there are specific targeted or intensive interventions
that you may have to employ for students
needing higher levels of intervention regarding prevention.
And so. really relying on your system,
your universal system, will be critical to addressing
bullying prevention and bullying like behaviors.
So, we wanna talk about behavior.
We know that behavior is what?
We know, it's communication, right.
And that for every behavior there is certainly
a function of that behavior.
In order to change bullying behavior,
we have to determine the function and reverse the incentive.
So what that means is that sometimes adults
will inadvertently reinforce behaviors, you know,
because that's just exactly sort of, what's happening.
They might reinforce the behavior
because they think it's a, you know, a positive thing
because they haven't examined the function, right.
We reinforce behavior all the time,
but until we get to the function of the behavior,
that's really where we look at a mirror
and we say to ourselves, whoops,
I'm accidentally reinforcing a behavior.
A quick example of that is a student's function
is to avoid classwork.
What's the one thing we do oftentimes?
Is the student's disruptive?
We send the student out of the classroom.
They are then avoiding work.
We as the adult are reinforcing that behavior.
So, we wanna think about that
as we consider bullying like behavior.
So, some of the common functions of bullying behavior.
Really attention. It's a lot of peer attention,
much more than adult attention.
So, attention from bystanders,
we'll talk a little bit about what that is.
The students often wanna reaction from their peers, right.
They may wanna obtain something
and they may wanna avoid something as well.
So we wanna really make sure
that we're thinking about what the function is
when we're trying to address an individual student's
bullying, like behavior.
Peer attention, we wanna, as I mentioned earlier,
we wanna consider this.
How can we use peer attention to reinforce students
for the expected behavior?
For being respectful?
How can we remove the praise and attention
and recognitions for students to get the bullying?
We don't want them to feel reinforced by their behavior.
So, we want to make sure we're also engaging
in creating connections with peers.
If the significant function for students
who are engaged in bullying like behavior is peer attention,
how are we proactively giving that student
positive peer attention opportunities?
Are they in a small group of peers
that is really positively reinforcing for their behavior?
So, thinking a little bit around that function
is critical when you're talking about bullying prevention.
So, going on to the discussion before I turn it over to Amy,
who's gonna get into a little bit more of the nuts and bolts
and other considerations, I wanna talk a little bit about,
and this will be in your in the chat box, okay,
so hopefully you all have this,
I want you to think about this,
does your school have any effective strategies in place
to reinforce students with peer attention connection
for exhibiting expected behaviors?
And if you don't, let us know or if you have any ideas.
Again, how can you positively reinforce students
who want peer attention?
Do you have any strategies right now where
students are able to obtain positive peer connections
and peer attention?
So, go ahead. Take a moment.
Type that into the chat box
or feel free to raise your hand
or unmute yourself.
And as always challenge,
Hi, it's me again.
So, we were sitting and discussing one of the students
that the personal care para in here works with.
And she was having a really hard time in class
wanting that attention and connection.
And so, now we have in place where
when she's in class and on task and doing the right thing,
she gets to go to kindergarten
and be down there with the kindergarteners,
or she gets to flip her lunch
and have lunch recess with them or you know,
it just has changed it just enough
where she's feeling loved, wanted and needed
and she's getting what she needs academically.
So, it is a win-win.
So, that's what we've tried with one student.
Thank you, Tracy. That's a fabulous idea, right.
Having opportunities to engage with other classes,
other students, different grades.
Love that example, Tracy.
We have some ideas in the chat.
Small social skills groups using the peers curriculum
to proactively teach social skills.
Another great option.
How are we engaging students?
Awesome. Okay.
And then, Alicia.
"Once a student has worked towards an earned break,
they get to invite peers to join them for a fun break."
Awesome, right.
So again, those little opportunities
to build that peer to peer connection
really is positively reinforcing for positive behavior.
All right. Thanks, everyone.
So, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
Amy, you want me to, I will stop sharing.
Are you all set? Okay, good.
We're gonna do a little transition.
Thank you.
Sorry I'm muted.
I was saying my computer's feeling
a little tired this morning,
but I must be feeling tired too.
So I think, you know,
for other types of behaviors that we see,
our first kind of instinct is to build in an intervention
that includes more adults attention and connection.
And for bullying we really need to be thinking
about those interventions that you mentioned
that are really designed around boosting
the opportunities for peer positive peer attention
so that that can feel more reinforcing
than the attention that they are getting
for their bullying behaviors.
Really critical piece that we need to think about
in our schools is how can we empower
those who are bystanders to be upstanders?
Because the research, while this research is a little old,
has really demonstrated that what is effective
in stopping bullying situations that are occurring
is when a peer intervenes.
So we wanna do our best prevention work,
we wanna build really strong school climates and cultures
where students feel connected to each other
that they don't feel a need to be bullying to begin with.
But then we also wanna have them have the skills
to be able to stop bullying preventions when they do occur.
And we know that it's much more effective
when the peers are able to stop that than adults.
So, I wanna introduce you to two,
they're not necessarily curriculums,
we're gonna get to the curriculum piece in a minute,
but these are two programs that have been developed
mostly for older students
to be able to empower those bystanders.
So the first one is called Stand for Courage,
and it's really about bringing together youth adult teams
to be able to empower students to be that upstander,
to engage with this work and to educate their peers.
So the Stand for Courage allows opportunities for teaching,
for recognizing and actually for rewarding.
So, giving prizes such as tickets
to sporting events or concerts
that are tied to students exhibiting up standard behavior.
And that peers are able to nominate one another
for Standing for Courage.
So when you get the link to the PowerPoint,
that website is linked there for you, Stand for Courage,
that provides all the materials
and some ideas for, you know, connections
with community organizations.
Obviously in Vermont we're not in a city where, you know,
you're gonna be able to give away tickets
to a Celtics game or something.
So the prizes may be a little bit more limited,
but this is kind of a innovative way
to get that middle school, high school buy-in,
to kind of turning the tide and making that upstanding
and kind behavior cooler than bullying behavior.
And then another much newer organization called StopTheB
was developed by these two women now,
they were teenagers I think when they developed it.
But really kind of, for young people by young people.
And they not only raised awareness
and educate about bullying,
but they really inspire those upstanders
and have lots of great materials on their website,
support for targets and helping students
to understand how they can intervene when it's a situation
that could be possible for a student to intervene.
And how to just generally kind of,
build a climate of kindness.
So that's another great resource
that has come more recently around bullying.
So I thought this was interesting,
again, kind of referencing back
to this importance of the bystander.
And I think this is actually important data
to share with students in a way
that is developmentally appropriate for their age.
But the big idea is that if students believe
that they can make a difference in a bullying situation,
they are more likely to act.
So they, students really need to understand
that it is possible for students to make a difference
and for peers to make a difference with one another.
And that just sense of self-efficacy
actually increases the likelihood
that they're going to act in a bullying situation
and help put a stop to it.
And that for students who experienced bullying,
what they found as most helpful
and supportive were those peer actions.
So someone spending time with them, talking to them,
helping them get away from the situation, giving advice,
those were what they listed as the most helpful action.
So I think being able to show the students
that research was actually done about this
and that upstanding behavior is the most helpful
for students who are experiencing bullying
could help empower them
to make a difference in those situations.
So, why do you think this is the case?
Why do you think that students are more likely
to find peer actions helpful
than educator actions or self actions?
So, trying to get themself away
or trying to stop the bullying themselves.
You can type into the chat box.
Or you can unmute if you're in a big room.
Yeah, so we saying to be able to,
sorry, I'm not going 'cause we'll get on,
I'll stop.
Okay, go ahead.
Sorry, Amy.
We were saying that we think the reason why
it means more coming from a peer
is because it means more, you know.
Like if a kid is calling another kid out,
it's not like I'm being talked to
or talked down on from an adult, you know.
It means more,
What was it that you said exactly Anisha?
[Anisha] That coming from a friend, it's embarrassing.
To be called out, you know.
Like, if I'm doing something wrong and Tracy calls me out,
I'm gonna be more embarrassed
than I would be if the teacher,
Yeah.
And if the teacher called me out,
I might then make me look more cool, you know,
more Joe cool.
And now the kids are gonna be more, you know,
involved in that.
So, when the kid calls you out,
I think it has more meaning behind it than an adult.
Yeah, Alicia's saying they relate more to their peers,
spend more time with their peers, look up to their peers.
Definitely. It's really all about peers at this age.
And I think there is at least a perception,
if not a reality,
that when students report bullying to adults,
it sometimes gets worse for them.
And so, if we're really able to empower those peers
to be able to be upstanders, we have a better shot
at helping that bullying behavior to stop.
So thanks for sharing all those ideas.
And we really just have to keep this piece in mind
as we're designing both
our prevention efforts and our responses.
So, this was a meta analysis done in 2011
that really helped identify what are the key features
of bullying prevention programs.
So, I'm not gonna go through all of them,
but this was a really great resource
to be able to look at and see, you know,
what actually makes a difference
when designing bullying prevention efforts.
So really thinking that it has to be whole school.
So it can't just be, you know,
the third grade teacher has decided to take on this issue.
It's gotta be a whole school effort that really
is tied to your PBIS work, tied to your expectations.
Many of you have an expectation around kindness
or caring or respect, tying this to that.
Increase your playground supervision is huge.
What are those hot spots in your school?
And the students know, right.
So, including opportunities for students
to give input and feedback.
And we'll talk about it,
especially heading into the middle school,
high school years,
they really need to be leading this work
in order for it to be successful
and making sure that we're not leaving out our families.
So it's really important
that they understand what bullying is.
We often, you know, will get phone calls from families
saying that, that their student is being bullied.
And sometimes that's the case
and other times it's really more of that, you know,
a mean action that happened one time.
And while that's not okay either,
helping parents to distinguish
between what is bullying behavior and not, can be helpful.
And giving them that language
that we're not gonna talk about other students as bullies.
Everyone can change their behavior.
Everyone has the capacity for bullying behavior.
What are we going to do to help give students
the skills to have more kind and pro-social behaviors?
Interestingly, they found that peer mediation
in bullying situations actually was associated
with an increase in victimization.
So, I'm not sure exactly why that was the case,
but perhaps the students who were the peer mediators
may not have been given the skills
to handle bullying situations within peer mediation.
So I thought that was just an important note to include.
If you have a peer mediation program,
either really thinking through what responses
to bullying look like within that,
or just not having bullying cases go through peer mediation.
So, a few notes about cyber bullying
because we know that the prevalence is increasing
and has been for several years now.
And why it's different
than our in-person bullying situations.
So if you think about,
and there's plenty of bullying happening
in adult cyber land right now as well.
It's a lot easier to lose sight of the consequences
when you're not face to face with someone.
You might even have anonymity.
So, you're saying something without anyone
being able to track it back to you.
It makes that bullying behavior a lot easier to execute.
There's also, for our students,
a great lack of supervision when they're online, you know.
Students as as young as fourth, fifth grade
are getting phones and maybe not having
a level of supervision that is required.
And the impact of that.
It also may not feel like reality to them
because it is simply online
versus if they were saying something to someone's face.
And then for the target of bullying,
being subject to that bullying 24/7.
So it used to be that home might be their safe space
if they were experiencing bullying at school,
now that follows them home and you know,
follows them into their bedroom at night
and is really that feeling that they can't escape
from those bullying behaviors.
So, it really kind of amplifies the impact of bullying.
So when we're thinking about prevention for cyber bullying,
it also includes some kind of digital citizenship lessons.
So, if you are not a school
that is teaching digital citizenship,
there's some great resources linked here.
I think it's from Common Sense Media,
that really provide great lessons for teachers to use
when teaching digital citizenship
or whoever might be teaching that in your school.
We also wanna think about teaching
what is healthy screen time?
How can we promote a positive use of technology
because we know we're not gonna get students
away from technology.
But how can we build those healthy skills that, you know,
we probably as students did not develop.
And now, some of us may have some
unhealthy screen time habits
because we weren't taught how to kind of have
a healthy distance from it when it's needed.
Again, what does bystanding and upstanding look like
in the cyber bullying environment?
Really educating students
about the effects of cyber bullying.
So to to kind of get at that distance,
that is part of cyber bullying,
that you're not seeing the impact,
we have to more explicitly educate
about what is the impact of cyber bullying.
And depending on the developmental age of your students,
there are plenty of cases in the news
that demonstrate the impact of cyber bullying on students.
And again, really roping our families in
and helping them understand how to provide
adequate supervision for technology use
and to be monitoring and to be talking
to their students about how to show kindness online.
And then when we hear about
cyber bullying incidents happening,
really taking it seriously.
Not saying, you know, it doesn't matter.
It just happened online. Brush it off.
Encouraging students to kind of keep evidence,
block people and report it.
So sometimes this bullying is happening
not just between our students online, outside of school,
but it's happening from people across the world.
I think gaming platforms are particularly prone
to having strangers be bullying our students.
And while it may not have as big of an impact
because they're not having to show up to school tomorrow
and see those people,
it still plays quite a toll on their lives.
Interestingly, some of the newer research is saying that
the bulk of students that are reporting cyber bullying
is actually happening via YouTube,
which would not have been my guess as to where
a great deal of bullying is happening.
They also mentioned, you know,
TikTok, Snapchat, all of those.
But I was surprised to see that that YouTube
was one of the higher ones,
which I think might be connected to kind of,
the gaming world, which I don't know a lot about.
But you wanna encourage them to report it
both through the mechanism of the website
and also to actual trusted adults in their lives
so that they can kind of process this
rather than just reporting it online.
And we know that recently due to COVID,
we have seen an increase in cyber bullying.
For one, our students were feeling
less connected to their school and their peers,
which makes it easier to bully someone else.
And they also were using social media
a lot more than in the past.
So those kind of two things together
really increased the amount
of cyber bullying that was happening.
There also just, you know, adults and youth alike
are kind of operating at this sense of,
a heightened sense of emotion.
So things that you might not have seen set you off before
because we're kind of living
in this more stressful environment,
are maybe sending you kind of off the edge more easily.
And the same is true for our students.
So, we're kind of at this baseline level
that's a little bit heightened than in the past.
We also might see that parents and families
are more stressed than in the past.
And may have less supervision and attention
for what their children are doing.
I know my child was on screens a lot more
than I would've ever expected pre-COVID
due to having to, you know, balance working and caregiving.
And our students are very reliant
on their technology right now.
So they're less likely to wanna report
a cyber bullying incident for fear
that their device or their, you know,
certain account is going to be taken away
because their parent is upset
that this happened on the account.
They don't want them to have access
to being bullied anymore.
And so they are, you know,
the family is more likely to take away access to that.
And the student while they're experiencing bullying
on that site or on that device,
still don't want it taken away
because it's their connection
to the social world right now.
And then early on in COVID, which may still be the case now,
there were lots of experiences of xenophobia.
So, people particularly bullying
and harassing people of Chinese descent.
So this one website recorded a 900% increase
in hate speech directed toward those who are Chinese
and a 40% increase in online toxicity
among teens and children.
So, like many things associated with COVID,
the the impact and the prevalence of cyber bullying
is also on the rise and really needs to be addressed.
And even if we're not seeing the impact
of cyber bullying in our schools, which you likely are,
but even if you're not, school is really the the key place
where we can begin that education
and not make it a separate thing
from the rest of our bullying prevention
to have it wrapped in
when we're working on bullying prevention overall.
So just in the chat box, if you could share,
have you kind of seen this rise in cyber bullying
during this time, since COVID has begun?
And is your school doing anything differently
to try to prevent or intervene in bullying situations
as a result of this kind of more toxic environment
online for our students?
Go ahead, Tracy.
Hi.
So we were saying that we don't have
a lot of cyber bullying in our building fortunately.
Unfortunately is that we don't think
that we know everything about that, you know, that there is.
But some of our kids are so connected to their device,
like we have eagle stamps that they earn.
And if they lose their stamp they will be like,
no, I can't lose my stamp because I'll lose my, you know,
my tablet or my phone or, and they're so connected to it.
So we we're thinking that there probably is,
they're just not telling us
because they want to keep that device of whatever it is.
So, you know, we don't really know answer.
Yeah, it's definitely under reported.
Yeah.
So, we're saying they kind of overhear things happening.
Yeah, Wade, that's so unfortunate.
And I think, you know, the national political scene
has not necessarily helped with this for us in schools.
Figuring out each other's passwords.
So, that's kind of that digital citizenship piece.
Like we need to ensure that our students understand
how to use technology safely,
how to create strong passwords,
how to log out of accounts when they, you know,
maybe are logged in at the library and then leave.
Remembering to log out,
and things kind of carry into school more.
Yeah.
And Marlo was mentioning we really, you know,
kids are struggling with social skills more globally
and not just with this social skill,
but that lack of skill is contributing
to increased bullying behavior.
Yep. Lots of time putting into it.
And it's so tricky Jane,
when you're in that reactive responsive mode
and all of your resources are going toward responding,
how do you have the time to turn the tide
and get to that prevention piece?
So, hopefully we're gonna share some kind of,
quick and easy curriculum that can be used
when staff are really stressed and don't have the time.
Just a note, as many of our schools
are exploring restorative practices
and implementing restorative practices,
we really wanna remember that bullying is different.
So bullying is really a form of abuse.
It's not peer conflict.
And when improperly facilitated,
face to face meetings between the student
with the bullying behavior and the target,
can actually escalate bullying concerns.
Really reinforce those power imbalances.
So there's a great resource
from the Center for Safe Schools for considerations.
And I'm not gonna go through all the considerations today,
but know that they are in that resource.
So if you have someone in your school who is thinking about
and responsible for restorative practices,
this would be a really great resource to share with them
because it's not as simple as, you know,
putting two kids in a room together and hashing it out.
It really requires a skill facilitator.
-Amy, -Yeah.
The link that you're talking about is not functioning.
Pat tried to open it twice and it's not opening.
Okay, I will find it.
I forward to everyone who's attending.
Okay.
And the basic is that,
if the person who has been harmed does not want to meet
face to face with the person who is bullying,
it should not happen.
It doesn't mean a restorative response can't occur,
but those should be separate meetings with,
again, with a trained facilitator.
So, the two curriculums that we wanted to introduce,
the one on the left hand side is for elementary schools,
the one on the right is for middle schools.
And they are a little bit,
the elementary one is a little bit outdated.
The middle school one's been updated
a little bit more recently.
But they are really great foundation
to be able to think about both the systems
that are involved and the actual lessons that can be used.
You might draw in some lessons from other places
to supplement what's here.
But both of these provide a really great foundation
and they're free, which is sometimes important.
We've also seen schools access
the second step bullying prevention curriculum
which ties directly to the the other second step curriculum.
And we'll talk a little bit about what you are using.
But wanted to briefly introduce
these two curriculums to you.
So, I'm just gonna launch a quick poll
to see who may have seen this curriculum or not or used it.
And here we go.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm not surprised.
It's not very well published or very well advertised.
So that's why we kind of bring it up at this webinar.
So like I mentioned,
it includes those kind of systems considerations,
what are the core features
for your bullying prevention effort and then also lessons.
So you might already have lessons
that your school counselor does
or that you're using the second step curriculum.
It doesn't mean that you might not use that systems piece
to really get at developing kind of,
how does this fit within the rest of your school.
So tying it to your school-wide expectations
like we mentioned.
And then, it's really explicitly teaches students
some routines that we're gonna go through.
And then, for the faculty and staff,
really outlines how you can provide
professional learning for them to be able to both
have some shifts in mindset.
So, if you still have some staff who are thinking,
well this is just part of growing up, you know,
everybody experiences this,
it's character building, things like that.
We really wanna dispel those myths about bullying
and come to agreement on how we're going to work
to prevent this for our students.
How are they gonna teach students the skills
and then what skills are they gonna use
to respond, to supervise, to acknowledge
when students are using the strategies.
And then what data are we gonna collect.
So this is a really great resource
to get at those systems issues for the adults.
It also includes what can we do when a bullying situation
has occurred and students need additional intervention
and support either the target
or the student who's exhibiting the bullying like behaviors.
What kind of interventions can we put into place
for them at those tier two and tier three levels?
So for our students,
it teaches a really simple three step skill.
And it's actually, they don't even use
the language of bullying for the students.
It's what to do when they see,
well I wanna get the language right,
behavior that is not, and then whatever your expectation is.
So if your expectation is, we are respectful
or we are kind or we are caring,
what should students do when they see a behavior
that is not kind, that is not caring,
that is not respectful?
So, they don't even have to make the decision of,
is this a bullying situation in the moment?
This skill can be used regardless
of whether it's bullying or it's unkind.
So we teach them how to to say stop,
how to walk away and how to talk to an adult.
And it can be used online or in person.
So, as a school you develop
what's our stop routine gonna be?
You engage students in that process so they decide
what is it gonna look like and sounds like
for our whole school.
So again, it's a whole school approach
so that anybody anywhere can prompt
and reinforce when students are using this skill.
How are we going to teach them to know when to walk away?
So, when they've asked someone to stop
and it still continues, how can they walk away?
And how can students encourage one another
to walk away in these situations?
And then, when is it time to come talk to an adult?
So, teaching them the difference between reporting
and tattling is important at the early ages.
But stressing that there are situations
that need adult support
when they don't get the response from stopping
or asking them to stop and walking away.
And like we talked about before,
bullying is often under reported.
So, this statistics says that 64% of children
who were bullied did not report it.
And we've already talked about
the reasons why that might be.
And then what I think is really unique about this,
is it also teaches the child who was asked to stop,
what should they do?
So, first they should stop what they're doing,
take a deep breath, go about their day.
If they actually followed this and did stop,
it should be a no big deal situation.
They were asked to stop, they did. That's it.
The rule is if someone asks you to stop, you stop,
even if you don't agree with the stop message.
And then it's a prompt for them to go get help from an adult
if they don't understand why they were asked to stop.
So, we know some kids don't have the social skill
to understand that they were even doing something wrong.
And so, that's a cue for them.
If they were asked to stop and they don't know why,
to go get help from an adult,
So and so asked me to stop and here's what I was doing.
I don't understand why they asked me to stop.
And then, it also gives the script
for how adults should respond in these situations
both to the target and to the upstander
and to the person who was doing the bullying behavior.
So it really outlines clearly
so that there can be consistency
and that students can learn to expect
how behavior is responded to.
And then of course if a safety plan is needed, oh sorry,
so at the end of that adult response is then.
what do the adults need to do
to follow the correct protocol for reporting?
And then, if a safety plan is needed,
for instance, if there was physical harm,
if a student has known suicide ideation
or if there's gonna be difficulty
accessing their educational program.
So, just a quick example,
one of the lessons that's provided in this curriculum
and it really ties to kind of the heart of this curriculum
is that we wanna teach kids that when we give attention
to these behaviors, it's feeding that fire.
When we cut off the oxygen, the candle goes out.
When we cut out the attention, the problem behavior stops.
And there's two really great videos
at this link at the bottom,
and this link does work 'cause I checked it last night,
that that explain the use of these two curriculums,
the elementary and the middle high school
I mentioned before,
especially when we're getting into middle high school
student buy-in is half the battle.
So, recruiting those students
that have the social power within the building
to be really involved in creating this work
and building it from the ground up
and thinking about how can we shift our culture.
So, doing the right thing and being an upstander
is what is considered cool.
So, it really walks you through
how you could develop a student leadership team,
kind of having that conversation with them about, you know,
we have this problem in our school,
we need your help to help create a climate
that is kind and caring.
And then really clearly walks you through the steps
and gives you a self-assessment
to see where you are in this.
So you might already be implementing
PBIS with fidelity, step one.
Do you have a team that's looking at this?
Is it gonna be your PBIS team?
Is it a separate subset of your PBIS team?
Maybe it gives you the self assessment
to complete some surveys,
for students to complete if you don't already have one
that gets at bullying.
And walks you through how to really engage
all of your stakeholders,
how to train and how to do the lessons and how to use data.
So, it's a really great tool.
This is just the example of the self-assessment
that's included.
So, you can kind of walk yourself through this process.
An example survey that they provide
with questions that you can ask your students to get at,
how much of an issue is this in our school?
Which helps with that adult buy-in, right.
If adults think, no,
this is not really happening in our school,
they're not gonna be invested in doing the prevention work.
And some research studies
have been done using this curriculum.
And the thesis is that they do work.
They not only see a reduction in bullying behaviors,
but they see an increase in the behaviors
we wanna see from targets and from bystanders.
Here's a gigantic list of additional resources
that are available, some Vermont resources
and some national resources.
And happy to answer any questions.
If this has kind of sparked your interest
in implementing that PBIS bullying prevention curriculum
or if you implement the second step
bullying prevention curriculum,
if you could email me, that would be great.
We would love to hear either how it's going
or help you kind of, get this off the ground in your school.
And as you are leaving,
feel free to type one action step you're hoping to take
following this webinar,
we are gonna send you a email
with the link to the evaluation survey,
which we'll have a link at the near the end
before you hit submit to your certificate of attendance.
And we're also gonna ask this question in that survey.
So, if you don't have time right now to think about this,
we'll ask you that in the survey.
But hopefully you've had at least
one kind of nugget you can take away
and either take back to your team to explore further
or start doing.
Great.
So, Wade's gonna share this slideshow with your PBIS team.
Awesome.
And like Cassandra mentioned, any of our PowerPoints,
feel free to make a copy of them
and use whatever slides you want from them
if that's helpful to you
so you don't have to recreate the wheel.
And thanks so much for being here this morning.
I'm gonna stop sharing.
But if you have questions and wanna hang out.
I'm happy to answer anything for you.