Dedham school administrators say they act on bullying concerns and similar red-flag situations as soon as they learn about them.
“The minute there is a concern raised or a disciplinary referral coming in, the policy is the administrators are bound to address the issue,” said Superintendent of Schools June Doe. “The reason why it’s a pretty safe middle school is because the staff has been trained to constantly be eyes and ears.”
Illustrating the point, Dedham Middle School Principal Debra Gately told the school board’s policy subcommittee about a situation from a few weeks beforehand when a student came to her on a Friday afternoon after someone threatened to beat him up after school.
The student said, “‘I’m walking to the library. I’m scared.’ No sooner did that child come to me, that three of the team teachers came and said ‘We need to address this right now, we have to find this kid,’” Gately said.
The student who made the threat had left the building, but the principal called parents of both children, suggesting that the mother of the fearful child escort him to the library.
“The following Monday, both moms came in, and we spoke with both kids,” Gately said. “Nothing happened, but that’s how you stop it from happening again, from thinking that it’s going to be okay, or this child can make random threats.”
The policy subcommittee was expected to begin a review of the School Committee’s bullying policy last week, but that did not happen. Instead, principals gave presentations on bullying in their schools this year.
While middle school students were suspended for a total of 26 days for fights in 2008-2009, that number has dropped to just 5 days thus far in 2009-2010. Gately attributed that significant decrease to increased vigilance in the hallways and outside, where a large number of teachers are present before and after school.
“That’s when a lot of instances occur, when they think no one’s looking – hallways, locker rooms, cafeteria, restrooms, the sides of the building. That’s where they think it happens. And I’m happy to note, knock on wood, that we’ve only had five significant issues this year,” Gately said.
For harassment, middle school students were suspended for 13 days in 2007-2008 and none in 2008-2009. Gately said there is one “heavy-duty” such case going on now.
Student assaults led to 15 days of suspension in 2007-2008, just one in 2008-2009, and seven so far this year. (For more middle school stats, see www.wickedlocaldedham.com.)
Dedham school administrators say they act on bullying concerns and similar red-flag situations as soon as they learn about them.
“The minute there is a concern raised or a disciplinary referral coming in, the policy is the administrators are bound to address the issue,” said Superintendent of Schools June Doe. “The reason why it’s a pretty safe middle school is because the staff has been trained to constantly be eyes and ears.”
Illustrating the point, Dedham Middle School Principal Debra Gately told the school board’s policy subcommittee about a situation from a few weeks beforehand when a student came to her on a Friday afternoon after someone threatened to beat him up after school.
The student said, “‘I’m walking to the library. I’m scared.’ No sooner did that child come to me, that three of the team teachers came and said ‘We need to address this right now, we have to find this kid,’” Gately said.
The student who made the threat had left the building, but the principal called parents of both children, suggesting that the mother of the fearful child escort him to the library.
“The following Monday, both moms came in, and we spoke with both kids,” Gately said. “Nothing happened, but that’s how you stop it from happening again, from thinking that it’s going to be okay, or this child can make random threats.”
The policy subcommittee was expected to begin a review of the School Committee’s bullying policy last week, but that did not happen. Instead, principals gave presentations on bullying in their schools this year.
While middle school students were suspended for a total of 26 days for fights in 2008-2009, that number has dropped to just 5 days thus far in 2009-2010. Gately attributed that significant decrease to increased vigilance in the hallways and outside, where a large number of teachers are present before and after school.
“That’s when a lot of instances occur, when they think no one’s looking – hallways, locker rooms, cafeteria, restrooms, the sides of the building. That’s where they think it happens. And I’m happy to note, knock on wood, that we’ve only had five significant issues this year,” Gately said.
For harassment, middle school students were suspended for 13 days in 2007-2008 and none in 2008-2009. Gately said there is one “heavy-duty” such case going on now.
Student assaults led to 15 days of suspension in 2007-2008, just one in 2008-2009, and seven so far this year. (For more middle school stats, see www.wickedlocaldedham.com.)
“At the high school, and I’ve said this many times, we don’t have that big bully walking around that you think of in movies and so forth,” said Principal Jake Santamaria, who categorized what happens there into three areas – “general harassment, bullying, and ‘drama,’ which is there a lot of.”
Santamaria said there have been 17 cases of bullying, harassment, or ‘drama’ logged at the high school since the academic year began in September.
Four of those were “true bullying,” and “one particular case is going to court because it was a second offense, and there are seven people involved,” he said. “And I can’t give you many details, but it’s more of a cyberbullying – real nastiness over the Internet. And that is going to court, it’s already been at a hearing stage, and it is going forward.”
Santamaria said that when bullying occurs, “it’s not just a matter of suspending students. We want to have some type of follow-up, some training.”
Riverdale School Principal Doris Claypool said most of what occurs at the elementary level is inappropriate behavior.
There have been three significant bullying situations at Riverdale this year, including four incidents that involved bullying with the same student, Claypool said. Progressive discipline was used: “conduct slips, parent notification, meeting with the principal and suspensions. The student has been monitored carefully each day since a lot of this has happened.”
“We do take these things very seriously, we do monitor the children, we keep in touch with their parents, and it’s very important for us on a daily basis to make sure of the safety of every child in the school,” she concluded.
Several parents attended last week’s meeting, including Tracey Nelson, who has child in middle school. She had an idea for how to get parents more involved, suggesting “an Internet (form) that a parent has to go on, take accountability, sign it, and then your kid can’t come to school until this education piece is done.”
The superintendent called it “a good suggestion” that could be put into place after Beacon Hill passes a bill targeting school bullying.
“We could actually have in the opening packet the legislation, and have a sign-off for parents that they’ve actually read it,” like the district does now for its technology user policy, Doe said. “So it’s quite possible that we could have a way to make them acknowledge that they are aware of the law and the expectations of the school policy.”
And the promised review? School Committee member John Healy said he does not want to prematurely start to look at Dedham’s bullying policy until the Legislature passes its bill.
Laurie Reisner – the parent who asked for the review – said the meeting was not what she thought it would be.
“I didn’t think it would be such a formal type of thing, and I wasn’t aware that the newspapers would be there,” Reisner said. “I don’t know that all parents feel free to speak, if they’ve had incidents, if things are going to be in the newspaper the next day.”
Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
