Brookline Schools May Adopt Standardized Bullying Policy

As public schools across the commonwealth scramble to comply with a new state anti-bullying law before a Dec. 31 deadline, school officials in Brookline say they're likely to adopt a standardized bullying policy rather than a homegrown version crafted last spring.

Members of Brookline's School Committee had started developing the policy in an effort to get out ahead of anticipated requirements in the new law, which was signed by the governor last May. But school officials now say they plan to scuttle that document in an effort to comply with the letter of the new law.

"This is a pretty prescriptive law, and it lends itself to creating the policy right off the law and implementing it," Superintendent Bill Lupini told members of the School Committee at a policy meeting last week.

The policy being considered was developed by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and would broadly define what behavior constitutes bullying while laying out basic procedures for reporting and investigating bullying behavior. School officials say it would be supplemented by an anti-bullying "master plan," which would spell out in detail how the policy should be implemented in the Brookline schools.

Rebecca Stone, chair of the School Committee and author of the early bullying policy, said the new document is "substantively very close" to what she drafted last spring and said adopting the standardized policy makes sense.

"It behooves us to have language that is recommended and standard and commonly understood across the districts of the commonwealth," she said.

But School Committee members have also identified several parts of the policy they would like to change, particularly around issues of retaliation.

Under the original policy, students who retaliate against other students for reporting bully behavior would have been treated just as if they had committed a second offense. While the new policy also prohibits retaliation, it does not provide for the more serious consequences.

"The discussion last spring was that this was a new take and a very positive message to send about retaliation," said Stone, who suggested borrowing language from the original policy.

School officials may be powerless to change some other parts of the policy. Several School Committee members have criticized the state anti-bullying law for requiring the policy to cover all bullying that occurs "at functions or programs whether on or off school grounds."

"What this says is the schools are legally responsible for any interaction that happens anywhere at any time," Stone said.

Judy Meyers, another School Committee member, called the provision "an example of a bad law."

School Committee members are expected to consider the policy again at an Oct. 27 meeting. The master plan, which is based off a model developed by the state Department of Education, will go through a review process involving principals, School Committee members and members of the public before its scheduled implementation next January.

School officials are also looking at ways the schools can work anti-bullying lessons into the curriculum. Officials expect to have the new lessons, which are required by state law, in place by September 2011.