When schools resume classes later this month, they will have more power to deal with bullying.
The new rules, which were adopted by the Legislature in the spring, expand situations in which educators can launch investigations into alleged bullying incidents.
“It’s definitely broadened the scope,” said David Gunter, director of middle schools for the Santa Rosa County School District. “There’s going to be more situations where the school gets involved.”
Legislators made three major changes to the state’s bullying policy, Gunter said.
First, they expanded the definition of bullying to include both public and private incidents. They also broadened the definition of cyberbullying to include multiple forms of electronic transmission, including impersonating someone online by creating a spoof webpage. The final change allows schools review incidents that might have happened outside of school but whose impact spilled over into it.
“Cyberbullying has become more prevalent than face-to-face,” said Charlie Marello, principal of Emerald Coast Middle School in Santa Rosa Beach. “It’s not uncommon for a student or a parent to come in here with a Facebook or Instagram printout.”
The school gets that type of complaint about once a month, Marello said.
The previous Walton County School Board policy on bullying gave officials some power to investigate those types of incidents, but the new law will strengthen that.
Santa Rosa County also had a similar policy in place prior to the change, according to Conni Carnley, who oversaw discipline for the district until just recently.
“It’s business as usual for us,” she said. “ … but we’ve now got more oomph behind it.”
Carnley said the key factor still remains educating students about bullying and encouraging them to come forward.
“We depend a lot on the students to be able to bring that forth,” she said.
While incidents can be reported anonymously through a variety of avenues, Carnley said most of the time the students come forward to report it themselves.
In the short-term, the biggest impact of the law likely will be more confirmed bullying incidents, Gunter said, because educators now can use in-school and out-of-school actions to establish a pattern required to meet the state’s definition of bullying.
“If it comes and it’s bothering our kids on campus … we’re going to discipline for it,” Carnley said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.