Schools

Bullying Incidents Still Down in Brick Schools

Students changing online bullying habits, however

The number of incidents in Brick schools that are considered harassment, intimidation and bulling – colloquially, and under the state's anti-bullying law, known as HIBs – remain down this school year.

So far in the 2012-13 school year, there have been 88 investigations conducted by school officials, 27 of which resulted in a finding of a bona fide HIB incident.

"What's significant is that last year at this same time, we had already hit 76 HIBs," said Earl Mosley, the school district's HIB coordinator. "One of the things we're seeing currently is a change in the kids."

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Mosley said teachers are continuing to get anti-bullying training and disputes are being recognized and resolved.

"It's not all pretty," however, Mosley said.

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Since students have caught on to the fact that school officials are monitoring Facebook, they've moved to Twitter to air messages or posts that could be considered HIB incidents.

"They've moved, so they're now tweeting each other," said Mosley, who added school officials, in some instances, have gotten e-mails from parents with screenshots of potentially offensive tweets.

Mosley said the district as a whole is developing a new initiative that will produce "formative assessments" of bullies with the aim of changing behavior rather than simply disciplining the offender.


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