Office of Career and Technical Education

Bullying School Violence Prevention

School Violence Prevention Suggestions

• Bullying – what type of training has your staff been involved in? Does your policy include bullying and inappropriate behavior actions?
• School Climate – does the district have a curriculum such as Character Counts! Education and is it district-wide to help students and staff identify bullying and what to do to stop it, protect themselves, filing a grievance or complaint (teach students/staff how to go through the process)? Do a student survey on school climate – and what they would like to see?
• Do the students take a leadership role in school climate – Have a “No Taunting Pledge”? Use Student leadership – student council activities…..what activities has the school done, what were the outcomes?
• Include your disciplinary policy – how you treat students and staff fairly across the school district.
• Include the nondiscrimination clause such as the one that is printed in the newspaper prior to the new school year.
• What types of trainings do you offer to students, staff, at the beginning of the school year? Do you go through the handbook by classes or do you have an advisory class at the beginning of the school day where you can provide students with opportunities to role model good behavior – or do activities through out the year on giving compliments, etc.? (an all school orientation is not efficient or effective) The liaison can provide you with some contacts of administrators that have similar school population as yours.
• Educate school/community members on how to file a grievance and where it is located in the school’s policy handbook and/or on a website.
• Identify who is the contact person(s) for complaints within the school on 504, Title IX, and all discriminatory complaints (Usually, we recommend two different individuals to make a balance). Put this in the newspaper at the beginning of the school year.
• Provide an example such as a Behavior Matrix, which is a table that includes information of type of inappropriate behavior, behavior modifications, disciplinary action taken (an example for schools to use is posted on the South Dakota Department of Education’s website).
• Put in the language from the Office for Civil Rights of all the laws that schools must abide by when receiving any funds from the federal level. If your school has had a federal on-site Civil Rights Review or some of your staff have been to a training that deals with Sexual Harassment, Title IX, or Civil Rights – let the public know, or have an updated in-service for all school staff.
• Make an invitation for individuals to come to school board meetings when policy is being updated for the Civil Rights purposes. The school policy master handbook should be updated continually – by one section at a time.
• No tolerance is pushed consistently across the school district.
• Make reference to Office for Civil Rights in all policy handbooks and you may use the Civil Rights Liaison in Office of Career and Technical Education for technical assistance. The liaison can facilitate trainings on a statewide basis for administrators, staff, and provide resources.
• There will be a bullying and school violence prevention training at the South Dakota Association of Career and Technical Education Conference – August 2-5, Ramkota in Pierre , and at the Tech Prep Conference in December, Sioux Falls Ramkota. Also, the Nontraditional/Equity and Civil Rights Liaison will be organizing trainings in January on Bullying/Sexual Harassment Prevention and in June 2005, there will be training for teachers in teaching students on an equity basis with an analysis on disparity within the classroom – SAGE, Student Achievement Grounded in Equity. If interested please contact: Office of Career and Technical Education, 700 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501, 605-773-4527.