South Hadley school board OKs report

By Owen Boss

Staff Writer

SOUTH HADLEY - Nearly six months after the suicide of Phoebe Prince sent shock waves through the Valley, local School Committee members unanimously approved a final report Wednesday that an anti-bullying task force has been crafting since February.

After a brief discussion with Superintendent of Schools Gus Sayer about rearranging some of the language included in the 60-page final report, committee members Edward J. Boisselle, Lorraine Liantonio and JoAnn Jordan voted in favor of aligning the report's guidelines with school policy.

The anti-bullying task force that wrote the policy was made up of eight subgroups and included more than 100 people. The task force was formed in February after Prince's January suicide, and members had met once a week since then.

Key recommendations in the report include expanding the district's anti-bullying program beyond the ninth grade, where it now ends, to include it through senior year; boosting anti-bullying education at all grade levels; establishing a new anonymous reporting system for bullying incidents and a requirement that school administrators investigate such incidents within one school day of being notified; adopting a "Community Code of Conduct" emphasizing respect and tolerance that will be posted in all public buildings in South Hadley; and reconvening the task force's 29-member steering committee to monitor implementation of new anti-bullying policies.

The report defines bullying as repeated use of "written, verbal or electronic expression," physical acts or "deliberate acts of exclusion" that cause physical or emotional harm. It prohibits bullying that takes place on school grounds or off, if those incidents contribute to a "hostile environment" at school or disrupt the educational process.

In addition to having a problem with approving the report without specifying how many instances of verbal, emotional or physical abuse would constitute bullying, Boisselle voiced concern about whether the school's budget would allow for the implementation of all the task force's recommendations.

"I still have a little bit of a problem signing off on this policy when we are basically already saying that we will have difficulty doing everything in it," Boisselle said.

To quell Boisselle's concerns, prior to the policy's approval, committee members unanimously agreed on a motion to consider changing part of the report listing requirements from "shall" to "may." They will seek legal advice before making a final decision.

"This illustrates again that in order to be compliant with the law, we are rewriting this policy to include the language we feel it should include," Jordan said, "and that we are still in a position where, going forward, a lot of judgment is going to have to be made by administrators of each individual school building."

Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.