The Blaine School Board met with administrators at its Oct. 12 meeting to discuss how schools are emphasizing early intervention and conflict resolution to prevent bullying and create a culture of safety.
The district is focusing on understanding and proactively responding to incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying.
“While (bullying) may not be unique to Blaine, this is a great opportunity to talk about and recognize those concerns,” Director of Special Programs Lindsay Nowakowski said of community concern about bullying in the district.
For the high school, Principal Beth Eide said most of the peer conflict issues they see happen on social media, outside of school hours. She explained it’s often a back-and-forth exchange and rarely a situation where one student is solely the aggressor and the other student is solely the one targeted.
“I think a lot of things that we deal with is peer conflict rather than harassment, intimidation and bullying,” said Chris Bolt, the high school’s dean of students.
The district’s HIB Policy 3207 defines bullying, harassment or intimidation as an act that causes physical harm or property damage, interferes with a student’s learning, creates an intimidating or hostile learning environment, or significantly disrupts school operations.
Eide and Bolt explained that it can take time to investigate the situation — regardless of whether it is a HIB situation or peer conflict — and admitted that the school could better communicate that with students and families.
HIB Procedure 3207P requires staff to:
Notify families within two days of a HIB report form being received.
Complete the investigation within five days of the complaint.
Report back to families the outcome of the investigation within two days.
“To get a good picture and make a real good, solid decision on something that you can feel good about putting in place, it takes time to do that,” Bolt said.
At the middle school, administrators said they’ve found success with the “off and away during the day” cell phone policy mitigating some of the conflict on social media.
The middle school also started a general issue Google form that students can fill out when they are having an issue with a peer. While this isn’t a formal HIB form, staff may decide to fill one out if they feel it should be escalated. When the Google form is filled out, several administrative staff get notified so it can be addressed as soon as possible.
Assistant Principal Wayne Vezzetti said three situations have happened so far this year that he escalated for investigation. While none were determined to be HIB incidents, he said “it didn’t hurt to go through the process” to better understand it.
For the youngest learners in Blaine, the approach centers on teaching students how to interact with others at school. Primary school Assistant Principal Linsey Pike and Social Emotional Learning Specialist Monika Baisch said they focus on positive reinforcement and teaching children how to handle conflict with their peers effectively.
When students are seen by a staff member practicing one of the primary school’s three core values — being safe, being kind or being helpful — they are given a ticket and rewarded for their behavior.
“It’s opening conversations about kindness and empathy, and it’s truly going to be what is going to change the culture, I believe in my heart,” Baisch said.
Another approach used is play and repair, which Baisch explained is where both students involved in a conflict come together to talk about the situation, and then spend a few minutes playing.
“They see that they have so much in common and they don’t need to be fighting, they just had a bad moment,” Baisch said, explaining that this often nips the conflict in the bud before it becomes a true bullying situation.
