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Persuasive Essay On School Bullying Policy

Decent Essays

School Bullying Policy:
Effective or Not?

Do you feel safe at your school? Do you feel like your school’s policies protect you from potential threats? Some may say yes, yet others feel like the school doesn’t do enough. Schools enact rules against bullying, but does it really prevent it, or is that just how it looks from the surface. I think that the school policy tries to make an effective way to combat bullying, however it has some issues. The main problems with it are the fact that it requires repetitive “bullying” for it to be considered so, how it requires direct first hand knowledge of an employee to report the bullying, and lastly how it requires forms to be filled out within a certain span of time for the harassment to be acted upon.

First of all, I really don’t agree with how the Hollister High School Handbook describes and defines bullying. According to it, bullying is “intimidation, unwanted aggressive behavior, or harassment that is repetitive, or is substantially likely to be repetitive” (Hollister R-V Schools 14). So basically it’s saying that it’s not bullying unless it’s repetitive. A kid could shove you in a locker or push you over and it’s ok, as long as it’s only one or two times. I think that bullying doesn’t require it to be repetitive, because it’s still hurting a kid in some way, and can hinder the educational process; the school should take out the repetitive part of it. Branson’s harassment policy, which is similar to the bullying policy at Hollister, describes it as “graffiti; display of written material, pictures or electronic images; name calling, teasing or taunting; insults, derogatory remarks, slurs, jokes, gestures; threatening, intimidating or hostile acts; physical acts of aggression, assault or violence; theft; or damage to property” (Branson R-IV Schools 24). However, it does not require it to be repetitive, and that’s how I think Hollister’s should be.

Another problem I see that could come up with the handbook is how it only requires an employee to report bullying if they have “first-hand knowledge” of the incident. So with that in mind, a teacher or any other employee could ignore a reported instance of bullying, even if reported multiple times, because they have not

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