Macopin Middle School

Procedures for Dealing with Bullying and Harassment 

Bullying is a serious problem.  Bullying causes pain, affects the ability of students to perform well in school, and leads to unhappiness.  School should be a safe environment for all students.  Students who are bullied deserve to feel safe and welcome at school.  If students take time to prevent bullying, then the school climate will improve.  Everyone needs to take part in helping make the school a better place. 

   I. Definition

Bullying is intentional harmful behavior initiated by one or more students and directed toward another student.  Bullying exists when a student with more social and/or physical power deliberately dominates and harasses another who has less power.  Bullying is unjustified and typically is repeated.  It differs from conflict in that bullying involves a power imbalance element where a bully targets a student who has difficulty defending him or herself.

Bullying has five forms.  They are physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, and racial.

• Physical bullying involves harmful actions against another person’s body or property. Examples include pushing, hitting, pinching, and tripping.

• Verbal bullying involves speaking to or about a person in an unkind or hurtful way.  Examples include teasing, put-downs, name-calling, sarcasm, phone calls, text messages, rumors or hurtful gossip.

• Emotional bullying involves behaviors that upset, exclude or embarrass a person.  Examples include nasty notes, cyberbullying, intentional exclusion from activities, humiliation, and social embarrassment.

• Sexual bullying singles out a person because of gender and demonstrates unwarranted or unwelcome sexual behavior.  Examples include sexual comments, unwanted physical contact, and abusive comments. 

• Racial bullying involves rejection or isolation of a person because of ethnicity.  Examples include gestures, racial slurs or taunts, and name calling. 

II. Profile of a Bully

A bully lacks empathy and compassion, thrives on feelings of dominance, and seeks attention.  The bully doesn’t accept responsibility for their behavior. The bully often feels justified in inflicting hurtful behavior because they think their “victim” deserves the mistreatment and enjoys seeing him/her suffer. 

Bullies appear to be concerned primarily with their own wants, pleasures and needs. The individual thinks that bullying is an easy way to get what is desired.  The bully thinks that bullying increases their social status, leads to popularity, and appears to be tough or in charge. 

Many times bullies are easily frustrated and impulsive, feel justified in harming others, they don’t think of themselves as a bully.  In most cases bullies suffer from poor parenting and have witnessed aggressive behavior in the home. 
 
 III. What Teachers and Staff Can Do

Teachers should share their expectations for appropriate behavior with their students.  They should discuss bullying and make sure that students understand what it is and why it is wrong.  They should identify direct (i.e. name-calling, taunting, teasing, damaging belongings) and indirect (i.e. cyberbullying, spreading rumors, deliberate group exclusion) bullying behaviors.  Teachers should inform the students of what students should do if they are confronted with a bullying situation and make students understand that bullying will not be tolerated.  Teachers should make sure that they closely monitor students in less structured situations.

If a bullying incident occurs, the teacher should follow the school wide procedure and fill out the Macopin School Discipline form, which will be turned in to the Dean of Students’ Office.  If the behavior warrants immediate removal from class, contact the main office for assistance.  

On –the-Spot Intervention

Step 1:  Stop the bullying by standing between the students

Step 2:  Support the student who has been bullied

Step 3:  Name the bullying behavior and refer to the anti-bullying rules. 

Step 4:  Empower the bystanders with appreciation or how you noticed their inaction. 

Step 5:  Impose immediate and appropriate consequences such as a verbal reprimand.  Teachers should also report the incident by filling out the Macopin School Discipline form and returning it to the Dean of Students’ Office. 

IV. Interventions

All stakeholders must know what bullying is, the impact of bullying and how to reduce and stop bullying at school.  The key roles involved in bullying ( i.e. the bully, the bullied and the bystander) need to be understood and an action plan for prevention and intervention must be developed.

1. Adults should be assigned to monitor identified bullies

2. Monitor "hot spots" such as the hallways, locker room, cafeteria, and bathrooms. 

3. Direct students who are bullied to remain in supervised areas.

4. Encourage all students to report bullying behaviors to an adult in charge. 

  V. Consequences

Depending upon the circumstances, the bully must be spoken to about the incident.  The bully must be told that:  

1. Bullying behaviors are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

2. Negative consequences will follow bullying behaviors.

3. Inform the bully that their future behavior will be closely monitored. 

            The administration will:

1. Document all incidents of bullying

2. Contact parent of the bully and state concerns.

3. The bully’s schedule will be changed if the situation warrants it.

Source: Bully Guide by Michael Lujan M. Ed.