Ector County ISD board members questioned the district’s bullying and reporting investigation process and how they are going to implement new state requirements during their Aug. 8 workshop.
Dowling Elementary School Principal Julie Marshall and Director of Administrative Services Maribel Aranda spoke to the board. Trustees Delma Abalos and Dawn Miller, who served as director of administrative services for two years, were skeptical of the number of reports of bullying, the number of actual bullying cases and whether procedure was followed and consequences enforced.
In 2022-23, 229 incidents were reported compared to 238 in 2021-22.
In 2022-23, there were 31 confirmed cases of bullying after investigation, and in 2021-22, there were 37 confirmed cases after investigation.
Aranda said even if they weren’t confirmed bullying cases, it doesn’t mean nothing was done.
“… We have to make sure we address that as well, so we follow the code of conduct” and assign the consequences, Aranda said.
She added that they make sure they follow the process and contact the parents to let them know what happened, keep an eye on the situation to make sure nothing else occurs.
Texas Education Code defines bullying as a signal significant act or a pattern of acts by one or more students directed at another student that exploits an imbalance of power and involves engaging in written or verbal expression, expressions through electronic meals, or physical contact, Aranda said.
It also defines cyber bullying as involving any electronic communication device — from cell phones to email and social media.
Students or adults can report bullying anonymously through Crime Stoppers, using forms available in a school’s main office and on the ECISD website, or in-person to someone at the school. The forms are in English and Spanish, Aranda said.
“As soon as you get a report … you assess for immediate safety issues. After that you notify the parents of both the alleged victim, as well as the aggressor that a report has been submitted,” Aranda said. “We want to make sure both parties know what’s going on because we’re going to investigate.”
The administrator has 10 business days to investigate whether bullying took place. You contact the parents and notify them of the findings and assign consequences and intervention based on what you find. That could include disciplinary consequences, counseling referrals, schedule changes if need, behavior contracts, stay-away agreements.
Even when they are investigating, students may already have been separated.
If there was bullying, Aranda said campus transfers are an option, too.
If the student stays on campus, you monitor the effectiveness of the corrective action and touch base with the students to see how things are going. If anything else comes up, you address that.
Maximum consequences for bullying could mean going to the alternative center or charges filed against a student.
Marshall said if a student encourages a peer to commit suicide, that will mean expulsion.
Aranda said most of the incidents are at middle school and the cause is typically social media — someone putting something on Snapchat, for example. It’s easy to do it that way because you’re not face to face, she added.
Marshall said bullying for younger students is mostly name calling.
“That’s an education piece that the counselors would deal with … But once they have access to phones and social media a lot of it comes from there,” Marshall said.
Aranda said the students will take a screen shot and bring it to administrators.
She added that she usually has a police officer at a student assembly at the beginning of the year and they go over consequences for posting harmful things on social media and make sure the students know it’s serious because you not only get in trouble with the principal, but the law.
Marshall said every district has to develop a policy for reporting bullying and that is already in place.
“Then we are supposed to use a rubric, or checklist, to assess the incident of bullying and to determine the appropriate response. That is where a principal, once someone has reported an incident of bullying, we go through, I think it’s a 13-page checklist, checking off the boxes,” Marshall said.
She added that it gives you a step-by-step process of what to do such as interviewing the victim, the alleged perpetrator, any witnesses and teachers.
“It tells you exactly what to do and then to determine if, according to the TEA statute, if it was in fact bullying or if it’s just a code of conduct violation,” Marshall said. “We have that in place for principals and assistant principals to use. Everyone is trained in it. We’ve already had that training this year, so everyone is aware of the steps they’re supposed to use and they have this toolkit available to them.”
She added that they are supposed to provide research-based interventions for the student who was bullied and the perpetrator.
“We have counseling referrals. We always let the parents know that counseling is available and then our school counselors take over at that point,” Marshall said.
The counseling department also is supposed to integrate research-based content into instruction to reduce bullying. She noted that this is an important role of school counselors on every campus — elementary through high school. The counselors use TEA curriculum that is available for educating students to prevent bullying. The curriculum comes from PACER.org’s National Bullying Prevention Center.
Students are taught these age-appropriate lessons periodically throughout the school year. Marshall said the district and schools have to follow state and federal law when dealing with bullying investigations and incidents.
“Something new that the district is doing this year to meet the TEA standards is we are supposed to have an age-appropriate survey to measure school culture and healthy relationships between students and staff. We already give the Panorama survey twice a year in grades three through 12, so the district has already added some questions to address bullying on that survey. Every student grades three through 12 are taking Panorama this fall will be answering some questions on that Panorama survey,” Marshall said.
“That information is going to be very helpful as a principal because it’s an anonymous survey and the kids are really honest on that Panorama survey … I think if there’s an issue it’s going to show up on that survey,” Marshall added.
The younger children are very honest with you “at all times.”
“So if there’s something going on, they’re going to tell you …,” she added.
By Sept. 1, every school now has to establish a bullying prevention committee, which includes parents. Marshall said they have to meet with that committee at least four times a year. Marshall said a best practice would be to invite parents and those who are vocal to join the committee.
“All school-based staff and bus drivers have to complete bullying training through Safe Schools, so that’s the online training program that the district rolls out. You have to watch the videos; you have to pass the test. It’s important that our bus drivers are trained in bullying prevention and recognition because that is where we get a significant amount of complaints from parents and students because they’re not as highly supervised on the bus as they are in a classroom …,” Marshall said.
She added that staff is also trained in cyberbullying, which is on the rise even with young students.
“It’s important that we know how to recognize that and then what to do if that’s reported to us,” Marshall said.
She added that when reports are made, the administrator has to scan those and keep a copy.
Miller said there are principals who don’t send the bullying reports to leadership. Miller added that the template is good, if it’s followed.
Abalos said until they have employees that follow the policy, this is going to continue to happen.
Boyer said Aranda is there to ensure that everyone is following the policies.
Woodall said he would like to see more accountability for people who don’t follow the procedures.
“We’ve got to quit being scared for our people … There are people that are too secure in their positions,” Woodall said.
