New policy addresses cyberbullying in schools

Bullying, with many other parts of society, has entered the digital age.

Cyberbullying, or online bullying, has become a concern at schools across the country as more and more students are using social media to interact with one another.

To combat the rise of cyberbullying, Vestavia Hills City Schools, as mandated by the state, passed a new policy that expands the definition of bullying to include online bullying.

The change was made in accordance with the newly passed Jamari Terrell Williams Student Bullying Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey in May 2018. The law is named after Williams, a 10-year-old Montgomery student who committed suicide after he was bullied.

The policy states that actions may be considered bullying even if they take place off the school campus if it interferes with the “orderly operation of the school,” or creates a hostile environment for the victim.

“It somewhat broadens the reach of the policy,” said Vestavia Hills Superintendent Todd Freeman.

Freeman said the school is not tasked with policing everything that takes place off campus, nor will the school be engaging in any kind of surveillance of students. However, if the action affects a student’s education or the running of the school, school leaders have the right to intervene, he said.

Freeman said any action must be reported to the school in order for leaders to address any concerns.

Part of the effort the school system is making to decrease bullying includes teaching students how to be good “digital citizens” — teaching them what is appropriate and inappropriate online behavior. High school students that are part of the Help the Hills team visit the system’s middle schools to warn students of the permanence of what they might put on social media, and how it could affect them in their search for jobs and college admissions and scholarships. School staff are also taught to model positive online behavior.

At Pizitz Middle School, counselor Chase Hodge said he hears from students frequently about bullying or hurtful actions that are taking place online, using applications such as Snapchat, Instagram and Tik Tok, a new app that allows users to create videos and share them with others.

“Life is so much more digital than we know of,” Hodge said.

Amber Payne, another counselor at Pizitz, said much of what she hears about is exclusion — students not being invited to parties and get-togethers because they aren’t well-liked, which is difficult for kids to handle in middle school.

“Others see it, and it carries over into school,” Payne said.

Payne said some students will make social media posts complaining about other students and think they can get away with it because they aren’t naming the person, but it is all too easy to determine who they are talking about, and the impression made by such a post is permanent, even if the post is deleted.

Assistant Principal Donna Morgan said the work to decrease bullying has to happen on a daily basis.

“I think on a day-to-day basis, it’s just addressing it in teachable moments, one kid at a time, one conversation at a time, just talking about the effects of their actions,” Morgan said. “It’s an ongoing, everyday process, and on any given day, it’s different kids affected.”