Fight to Curb School Bullies Falls Short
Three years after promising to bring anti-bullying programs into every school, the Hawaii Department of Education has yet to deliver.
But it’s not rules the department lacks. It’s enforcement.
Although the department has an anti-bullying policy, each school is on its own when it comes to prevention, spokeswoman Sandy Goya told Civil Beat.
Since 1982, the department has had , a policy in the Hawaii Administrative Rules that defines student harassment, intimidation and bullying. It also lays out a disciplinary process.
But policy is meaningless if it’s not enforced. Anecdotal evidence indicates many of Hawaii’s teachers are ill-equipped to recognize the signs of bullying or to respond to them.
In 2007, department leadership promised that every school would have a proactive anti-harassment program by 2010 but never followed up with a plan. Some principals took the initiative and started their own programs to curb bullying, but it’s impossible to say if all did. (Goya said the department is still collecting information from its 15 complex area superintendents.)
A cross-section of educators, parents and community members believe that bullying in Hawaii’s schools is a major issue.
Last month at a Hawaii State Board of Education meeting, parent Jared Yurow was close to tears as he told the story of his teenage daughter whose classmates relentlessly teased and harassed her about her Jewish heritage. She suffers anxiety attacks and can’t be left alone now. She is receiving counseling and maybe one day her stomach will stop aching when she remembers what happened.
“It’s been devastating to my daughter,” Yurow told members of the board. “The emotional impact of the harassment was so devastating that we pulled her from the school. The unfortunate irony is that we had to pull our honors-student daughter out while the other students — the bullies — were able to continue on at school.”
At that same board meeting, more than half a dozen parents, educators and community members shared at times tearful and angry public testimonies about bullying in Hawaii’s schools. ( to read some the submitted written testimony.)
The issue recently drew national attention after several high-profile suicides were linked to harassment and bullying at school.
Those testifying in Hawaii wanted to know what ever happened to enforcing Chapter 19.
The short answer: Not much.
One victim of bullying at Waianae High School recently to the U.S. Department of Education after several failed attempts to get her school administrators to intervene.
Rules Without Enforcement
In Chapter 19, harassment is defined to encompass bullying and cyber-bullying. It describes harassment as, among other things:
“Making verbal or non-verbal expressions that causes others to feel uncomfortable, pressured, threatened, or in danger because of reasons that include but are not limited to the person’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, including gender identity and expression, religion, disability, or sexual orientation that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational environment, or interferes with the education of a student, or otherwise adversely affects the educational opportunity of a student or students.”
And Chapter 19 prohibits such behavior in Hawaii’s public schools. The chapter was amended in 2001 to specify that students should be prohibited from harassing others for their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
As of 2007, the Hawaii Department of Education had no statewide anti-bullying curriculum or program, and no mechanism for ensuring that schools were enforcing Chapter 19. So in June of that year, a School Safety Committee Advisory Council that the department “mandate that every school in the DOE adopt an anti-bullying, anti-harassment, and anti-discrimination program by the year 2010.”
In a September 2007 meeting of the board’s Committee on Special Programs, board member Breene Harimoto and then-Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto reassured the committee that the advisory council’s recommendations would be implemented.
“Mr. Harimoto explained that programs addressing anti-bullying, anti-harassment, anti-discrimination will be in every school by 2010,” according to minutes from that meeting.
Lawmakers tried to get involved, crafting a bill during the last legislative session that would impose a financial penalty on the parents of children who bullied or harassed other students at school. Each violation would result in a fine of $100. But the bill died in committee.
Last month, after several recent high-profile suicides related to bullying, State Rep. John Mizuno committed to introducing another bill in next legislative session to force the Department of Education to adopt rules dealing with bullying, .
The bill would require schools to come up with a procedure for students and parents to report incidences of bullying, and to develop an investigation and disciplinary process for the perpetrators.
It’s unclear what impact such a bill would have, given the department’s policies already spell out disciplinary action.
DISCUSSION: *What are your thoughts on the department’s anti-harassment policy? Share them in our school safety discussion.
