Diana Capellán has been following the Board of Education’s discussion of a new Code of Conduct for students.
Tomorrow night (Thursday, May 16, 7 p.m., Staples High School cafeteria), they’ll have a third reading of the policy.
Diana writes:
Back in 2016, our community mourned the tragic suicide of a 14-year-old Staples High School freshman.
In an open letter to then-superintendent of schools Dr. Elliott Landon, his parents wrote:
Several current Staples students have reported observing bullying, humiliating or inappropriate behavior by one or more peer or peers toward others, and these students report that [they] do not know how to respond or intervene.
They feel guilty and ashamed of their inaction and passive consent to the blatantly behaviors.
We wish to address school policy regarding mandatory electronics access and usage during class. We spoke with our son’s team of teachers and guidance counselor about limiting his access to his phone and laptop during the day to enhance his focus on his work. We were told that he had to have his laptop with him.
Frankly, there should be more and better options available. Such policy presently seems to result in social media access during school hours, which is counterproductive to the learning environment and subjects kids to additional cyberbullying. “
Fast forward to today. We still have similar challenges with our children being constantly online, and their safety.
Our children have access to their phones and social media during school hours, affecting not only their mental health but also increasing their likelihood of being exposed to hateful content.
Those online exposures inevitably bleed into the real world. In the last couple of months, we have seen concerning cases of racist and antisemitic hate incidents in our schools. Yet students still don’t know how to report or intervene when they see a peer being harassed in school or online.
Along with over 40 concerned parents, and at the behest of our school administrators at the March 13 Temple Israel event on bias, we have been contributing to the code of conduct process to find ways to address the issues of hate-based harassment we’re seeing in our schools.
We launched a website to raise awareness of 4 points that need further consideration in order to have a comprehensive code of conduct and rollout plan.
After further research, we realized that the single most impactful policy is implementing an anonymous reporting system, as has already been done by Darien, Greenwich and Norwalk.
According to a recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan, an anonymous reporting system increases the likelihood of students reporting signs of concerning behavior so it can be promptly investigated and addressed by administrators before it escalates to harassment.
Specifically, we’d like to bring the evidence-based Say Something program by Sandy Hook Promise to our schools.
Their website says: “Sandy Hook Promise’s no-cost Say Something program teaches elementary, middle and high school students to recognize the warning signs of someone at risk of hurting themselves or others, and how to say something to a trusted adult to get help.”
This training and app would not only empower bystanders to take action and help children feel more comfortable reporting bullying, but is also designed to be a powerful tool to keep our children safe from the threat of gun violence.
Tomorrow’s Board of Education agenda includes cellphone use during school hours and voting on the new code of conduct, which includes a provision to implement an anonymous reporting program in our schools.
Comments about a no-cellphone use police during school hours, and an anonymous reporting system to keep our children safe can be sent to boe@westportps.org, and/or made during the BOE’s public comment period.
