Community Education

Peninsula School District gives details on plan to tackle bullying, harassment

Posted on September 30th, 2024 By: Christina T Henry

Peninsula school leaders say the district’s plan to address systemic bullying is gaining steam.

Michael Farmer, Peninsula’s new chief of schools, told the school board on Sept. 24 that the district has embarked on a “management review” of existing harassment and discrimination policies and practices, and where changes could be made. A report on findings will follow in December or January.

Superintendent Krestin Bahr called for the anti-bullying initiative last spring after a deluge of complaints from students, parents and community members. They described a culture of unchecked bullying, harassment and intimidation often targeting minority or LGBTQ students.

Farmer’s report came a week after Bahr posted a letter on the district’s website decrying a rise in cyberbullying. The district is using a new portal for reporting incidents of bullying, including online harassment. The district fixed a couple of links to the site that initially were not functioning.

Focus on belonging

“If you’ve been paying attention to what’s been important to this school board for a while, you’d notice that belonging is a big deal. It’s part of our strategic plan,” Farmer said. “And if you’ve been paying attention further, you’ve heard reports from families and students that some students are really successful here. They really feel a sense of belonging, and others maybe, not so much.”

Farmer leads a team that will review district Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) policies to make sure they’re in line with state law and model anti-harassment policies. The team includes education professionals from outside the district who have experience in HIB: two from Puget Sound Educational Service District and one from Franklin Pierce School District.

Looking for gaps in the system

The team will survey students and other district stakeholders to assess where and how bullying has a foothold in Peninsula schools.

“We’ll be talking to students, parents, teachers and community members, and through that process, other people may come up that we want to have interviews with,” Farmer said.

The team also will look at data from the past three to four years, roughly since students’ return to schools from COVID. They’ll comb incident reports, complaints and disciplinary records, hoping to identify patterns and trends.

The team will research best practices in the field of anti-bullying. It will compare methods and outcomes in Peninsula School District to those in districts of comparable size and characteristics.

“We’re going to look for gaps in the way those things are handled and we’re going to audit and analyze existing preventive measures as well,” Farmer said.

Anti-bullying task force forming

The district will convene a Bullying Awareness and Prevention Task Force headed by Julie Schultz-Bartlett, the new assistant chief of schools. The task force will work in tandem with the research team, Farmer said. They’ll identify “points of pride and successes, challenges, and opportunities for growth and improvement.” Farmer didn’t specify who will be on the task force.

“Right now, we’re just kind of looking for interested people,” he said.

Task force meetings will begin in October or November.

Expected outcomes

Farmer, in his report, listed the following results the district expects from its anti-bullying work this fall:

Policies and response mechanisms that work better
Enhanced training programs and support systems
A framework for ongoing monitoring and accountability
Recommendations to improve systemic issues in harassment, intimidation and bullying
A communication plan to share information and progress

Following the team’s presentation of findings and recommendations, implementation of the plan will likely begin in early 2025. Farmer said the district may address some issues fairly quickly. Others that are “systemic” could take months or years to turn around.

Parent push back

As at several meetings in past months, the school board on Tuesday heard from one parent who said policy updates are meaningless without follow-through from district officials.

Karen Shuey testified that her son was the target of in-person and online bullying and harassment. The offending student relentlessly criticized him during a football game and posted online a video with disparaging comments about the student and his late father, a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy who died of a medical emergency while on the job in 2020.

Shuey complained that punishment lagged, resulting in further harassment of her son. The offender remained in school and played in a football game even though the school principal saw the video, she said.

“My son continued to be harassed by this student,” Shuey said. “’Zero-tolerance is zero-tolerance.’ I don’t know what that means because that principal failed to enforce a zero-tolerance policy. … Parents are screaming that there’s a problem in the district with HIB.”

New reporting system

Superintendent Bahr, in her letter to the public on cyberbullying, highlighted a new reporting system the district has gone to this year.

HearMeWa.org is a program of the state Attorney General’s Office offering support to young people up to age 25 struggling with mental stress and/or abuse. Trained counselors field all calls, and the website includes a portal to report bullying, mental health issues, domestic abuse, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and threats of violence among other concerns. Reports can be submitted anonymously.

Previously, the district handled reports internally, explained Kris Hagel, PSD’s executive director of digital learning. Hagel and another staff member fielded all HIB complaints.

HearMeWa.org is monitored 24/7, Hagel said, and reports that involve the possibility of suicide or violence are immediately referred to law enforcement. The school district is notified of reports within two to three hours, Hagel said. The district has received “seven or eight” reports via HearMeWa.org so far this year.

Links to reporting system fixed

Parent Cristy Wahala during public comments complained that two links on the district’s website to HearMeWa.org were dead ends. Hagel promised to fix them promptly. Board member Lori Glover reported later in the meeting that the links were now functioning.

To report a concern via HearMeWa.org on PSD’s website, go to Family and Community Resources, then “Make a Report,” which leads to the district’s Safety and Security page. Scroll down to “Report a Concern.” Or go to Student Resources, then Safety and Security; scroll down to “Report a Concern.” The link to “Report a Concern” is also at the bottom of each of PSD’s website pages.