Dear Safe Schools Coalition Members and Friends:
(1) New Jersey Signs America's Toughest Anti-Bulling Law
(2) Jackson grad campaigning for stronger Safe Schools Act
(3) UW study: Kids gossip more than you'd think
(4) Anti-Bullying Program Reduces Malicious Gossip on School Playgrounds
(5) In Isolated Utah City, New Clubs for Gay Students
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(1) Governor Christie signs the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, America's toughest anti-bullying law
By enacting a totally new paradigm to protect
vulnerable students, New Jersey sets a new course for the nation
Though 45 states, including
New Jersey, have had anti-bullying laws, they are based on a loophole-ridden
model that has allowed schools to do little. New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of
Rights, in contrast, mandates specific anti-bullying procedures for schools
across the state.
Garden State Equality spearheaded the campaign for the
new law. Since the organization’s founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 212
laws at the state, county and local levels advancing LGBT civil rights. That is
a national record.
Garden State Equality now initiates its new
Anti-Bullying Partnership – comprised of legal experts, educational experts,
corporate leaders, bullied students and parents – to partner with schools,
student organizations and parent-teacher organizations to make sure the new law
is enforced.
POINT-BY-POINT HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NEW LAW ARE AT THE
END OF THIS RELEASE.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Contact: Steven Goldstein, cell (917) 449-8918
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today
signed the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which enacts a new paradigm in America
to counter school bullying and provides a template for anti-bullying laws in
other U.S. states. The bill passed both houses of the New Jersey legislature on
November 22, 2010 – by 73 to 1 in the Assembly and 30 to 0 in the Senate.
Though New Jersey and 44 other states have
had anti-bullying laws, experts say those laws have been based on a vague,
loophole-riddled model that gives vast discretion to local school districts to
do whatever they want or don’t want, and have lacked teeth to work in the real
world. The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights corrects that problem with a sweeping
overhaul of New Jersey's current anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002.
“We are grateful to the prime sponsors,
Assemblywomen Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Mary Pat Angelini, and Senators
Barbara Buono, Diane Allen and Loretta Weinberg, for their leadership that
brought Democrats and Republicans together rapidly,” said Steven Goldstein,
chair of Garden State Equality. The overwhelmingly bipartisan support for this
landmark legislation will give impetus to other states across America, whether
they are blue or red, to adopt anti-bullying laws just like ours.
“The era of
vagueness and loopholes in anti-bullying laws is over, and hope for our children
has begun.”
With today’s enactment, Garden State Equality is initiating a new Anti-Bullying
Partnership – comprised of legal experts, educational experts, corporate
leaders, bullied students and parents – to partner with schools, student
organizations and parent-teacher organizations to make sure the new law is
enforced.
Though the suicide of Tyler Clementi on September 22, 2010 accelerated New
Jersey's attention to the bullying epidemic, drafting of the bill had actually
begun more than a year earlier. The painstaking research and discussions in the
drafting, during which Garden State Equality worked with legislators, leading
experts and other organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the New
Jersey Coalition on Bullying Awareness and Prevention, had anticipated that a
tragedy could happen in New Jersey given the weakness of the 2002 law.
The
complete text of the new law is at
www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A3500/3466_R1.HTM
and the legislature’s official summary of the new law is at
www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A3500/3466_S1.HTM.
HIGHLIGHTS OF
THE ANTI-BULLYING BILL OF RIGHTS:
America's first anti-bullying law that sets
statewide deadlines for incidents of bullying to be reported, investigated and
resolved.
Under the new law, teachers and other school personnel must report incidents of
bullying to principals on the same day as a bullying incident. An investigation
of the bullying must begin within one school day. A school must complete its
investigation of bullying within 10 school days, after which there must be a
resolution of the situation.
America's first anti-bullying law to
provide for an anti-bullying coordinator in every district, and an anti-bullying
specialist in every school to lead an anti-bullying team that also includes the
principal, a teacher and a parent.
America's first anti-bullying law to grade
every school on how well it is countering bullying – and to require that every
school post its grade on the home page of its website. Also on the home page of
its website, every school must post contact information for its anti-bullying
specialist.
America's first anti-bullying law to ensure quality control in anti-bullying
training by requiring the involvement of experts from academia and the
not-for-profit sector.
America's first anti-bullying law to provide training to teachers in
suicide prevention specifically with regard to students from communities at high
risk for suicide.
America's first anti-bullying law to apply not only to students in grades
K-12, but also to higher education. Public universities in New Jersey will have
to distribute their anti-bullying policies to all students within seven days of
the start of the fall semester.
The law applies to extracurricular
school-related settings, such as cyberbullying, school buses, school-sponsored
functions and to bullying off school grounds that carries over into school.
The law requires a school to notify the
parents of all students involved in an incident, including the parents of the
bully and the bullied student, and offers counseling and intervention services.
The law mandates year-round anti-bullying
instruction appropriate to each grade, and an annual Week of Respect in every
school that will feature anti-bullying programming.
The law applies to all bullied students.
In addition to protecting students based on the categories of actual or
perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender,
sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression, the law has clear
language protecting students bullied for any other reason.
With more than 82,000 members, Garden State Equality
is New Jersey's largest civil rights organization. Since Garden State
Equality's founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 212 laws at the state,
county and local levels - a national record. Garden State Equality is the only
statewide advocacy organization in American history to be the subject of an
Academy Award-winning® film.
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(2) Jackson grad campaigning for stronger Safe Schools Act
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1692037.html
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(3) UW study: Kids gossip more than you'd think
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/234205.asp
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(4) Anti-Bullying Program Reduces Malicious Gossip on School Playgrounds
http://www.newswise.com/articles/anti-bullying-program-reduces-malicious-gossip-on-school-playgrounds
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(5) In Isolated Utah City, New Clubs for Gay Students
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/us/02utah.html?_r=1
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