Districts of Illinois add cyberbullying to behavior under schools’ purview
These days, what happens on the computer can ripple throughout school hallways and classrooms.
It’s been coined cyberbullying, and it is now a violation of the Bullying Prevention Act and could result in bullies being asked to hand over online passwords to their social media accounts.
As of Jan. 1, the Bullying Prevention Act was modified to include cyberbullying, defined as bullying through the use of technology or any electronic communication – and the act is taken seriously in DeKalb schools, administrators said.
“It’s ever-changing,” said Kathy Countryman, superintendent of Sycamore School District 427. “There’s so many new applications or websites that everyone has access to. But sometimes students utilize them in a way that’s not very kind to someone else.”
The Districts of Illinois Association of School Boards began lobbying to include cyberbullying in the Bullying Prevention Act in 2012, the same year the association took a position on cyberbullying, according to Jim Russell, associate executive director of communications and production services for the association.
Before the days of social media, any school-related bullying happened from the time a student got on the bus in the morning to the time they returned home in the afternoon, said Doug Moeller, superintendent for DeKalb School District 428.
“Now when we talk about cyberbullying and sending stuff from their computers, it’s made it more of a slippery slope,” he said. “The nexus is if it causes significant disruption to the educational process. Quite often cyberbullying escalates into physical violence. When it rises to that level, we can look outside the scope of the school day.”
In District 428, students learn about the maxim: “Anything you put online, you better expect your grandmother is going to see it,” Moeller said.
“We tell students that if [they] do engage in this type of activity, there are consequences to it,” Moeller said. “It’s a way to say bullying online is no different than bullying face-to-face.”
In March, Ryan Goodman, a resource officer in Sycamore schools, gave a presentation about websites and phone apps students are using, but probably shouldn’t be, such as Tinder and ChatRoulette, and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter that cyberbullies are using for the wrong reasons.
“It’s something we have to continuously stay on top of,” Countryman said.
In 2014, the Right to Privacy in the School Setting Act went into effect, and state school districts were responsible for sending letters to parents stating that school officials, if necessary, can ask for students’ passwords to social media and email accounts if they are suspected of bullying someone over the Internet. This falls falls under a 1985 Supreme Court decision to search students if there was probable cause, according to Melinda Selbee, association attorney.
“I predict it’s going to become less significant as [society develops] more processes,” Selbee said.
Moeller said he sees the issue from both perspectives.
“There’s certainly a privacy issue, but it’s not much more different if you have something in your locker and we get in your locker,” he said. “In this case, it’s information that’s cloud-based. I think you’ve to weigh the whole issue. You have to weigh the egregiousness of what happened versus personal privacy.”
Countryman said the Sycamore school district has never asked a student for social media passwords in response to cyberbullying.
“We haven’t implemented or utilized that,” Countryman said. “That would have to be a bigger discussion. We’re not going down that road at this time. If legal entities get involved, that would be a decision they would make.”
