{"id":6985,"date":"2015-11-23T05:29:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T10:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=6985"},"modified":"2015-11-23T02:03:07","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T07:03:07","slug":"bullying-in-brick-what-causes-most-bullying-incidents-in-brick-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/11\/bullying-in-brick-what-causes-most-bullying-incidents-in-brick-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Bullying in Brick: What Causes Most Bullying Incidents in Brick Schools?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"School<\/a>

School Lockers (Photo: Rafael Castillo\/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Bullying in Brick Township schools has been halved from three years ago and has largely plateaued, though more incidents are occurring online \u2013 all while\u00a0school officials are wrestling with how to best delineate between a case of bullying in the legal sense and a simple conflict between students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every case, we have to look at it to see if it\u2019s a conflict situation or a bullying situation,\u201d said Earl Mosely, the Brick school district\u2019s anti-bullying coordinator.<\/p>\n

In the years since the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act was passed by the New Jersey legislature in 2010, the very definition of bullying has sometimes been difficult to identify, and the factors which contribute to a true case of harassment, intimidation or bullying \u2013 a HIB violation, in public school parlance \u2013 have evolved.<\/p>\n

During the 2014-15 school year, the Brick district reported 23 HIB violations to the state Department of Education. That\u2019s down from 26 cases during the 2013-14 school year, and cut by more than half from the 62 violations reported during the 2012-13 school year. School officials point to an intense focus on \u201ccharacter education\u201d over the past several years, and better training for both students and teachers in anti-bullying policies as the reason for the drop.<\/p>\n

While the state\u2019s anti-bullying law came into effect with a spotlight on avoiding harassment, intimidation and bullying as it related to a student\u2019s race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, in many cases Brick officials have seen a much more diverse set of factors that caused conflicts and bullying incidents.<\/p>\n

Out of Brick\u2019s 23\u00a0incidents during the 2014-15 school year, racial and skin color tension contributed to four\u00a0incidents. Gender contributed to three incidents. The remainder of the incidents fell into a catch-all category the state defines as \u201cother distinguishing characteristics,\u201d<\/p>\n

Mosely said school officials have been trained to identify many of these characteristics, including academic ability, hair style, overweight or obese physical shape, small stature or physical weakness and a lack of athletic ability. Other causes include bullying stemming from children living in non-traditional families, academic stereotypes and a student\u2019s socioeconomic status. Children who wore glasses were bullied in some circumstances.<\/p>\n

School officials look at a potential \u201cpower imbalance between two people involved\u201d when determining whether a HIB violation has occurred, Mosely said.<\/p>\n

Last school year, 21 of the 23\u00a0incidents were verbal in nature, while five also fell into the category of being delivered through\u00a0electronic communication. None of the incidents involved physical conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cParents, you need to be aware of what\u2019s going on on the internet,\u201d Mosely warned, saying that incidents often originate online and make their way into the school environment. Facebook is not the social network of choice, in most cases. Mosely said students are mainly using Instagram, Snapchat and Kik Messenger.<\/p>\n

As in the past, middle school students are most at risk of being bullied or bullying others, but school staff members are finding more girls are beginning to participate in bullying, an area which traditionally \u2013 and perhaps stereotypically \u2013 primarily involved boys in decades past.<\/p>\n

According to the state statistics, harassment, intimidation or bullying interfered with a child\u2019s education 13 times. In 18 of the incidents, the offender \u201cknew action would physically or emotionally cause harm to the victim or damage to the victim\u2019s property,\u201d data showed. In 22 of the cases, the HIB incident affected a group of students.<\/p>\n

The state data also shows how the Brick district handled bullying cases.<\/p>\n

In 12 cases, students were referred to individual counseling, while two cases involved students being more formally referred to therapy or treatment. Nineteen of the cases resulted in a student conference, while 10 resulted in a parent conference. Five were resolved through \u201cother measures,\u201d according to the state report.<\/p>\n

Brick\u2019s numbers were in line with other districts of its size. Jackson, the closest Ocean County district in size to Brick, reported 29 HIB incidents. Central Regional and Southern Regional both reported 21 incidents, while Lacey Township reported 20. Toms River, the county\u2019s largest district and the only district with three high schools, reported 83 incidents.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bullying in Brick Township schools has been halved from three years ago and has largely plateaued, though more incidents are occurring online \u2013 all while\u00a0school officials are wrestling with how to best delineate between a case of bullying in the legal sense and a simple conflict between students. \u201cIn every case, we have to look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[1059,24,1068,1067],"class_list":["post-6985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-by-the-numbers","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-bullying","tag-hib"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/3644385607_381642d8ff_b.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1OF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}