Law aims to help schools prevent bullying

AUGUSTA – Invoking the Golden Rule on Wednesday, Gov. John Baldacci ceremonially signed into law a landmark bill that aims for the first time to help schools prevent bullying.

“My parents taught me and my seven brothers and sisters – and I try to teach my son – that everyone should treat people the way they want to be treated,” Baldacci said during the event at the State House.

Sponsored by Rep. Carol Grose, D-Woolwich, LD 574 is the first piece of legislation aimed at helping teachers and administrators recognize bullying and understand how to deal with it, according to the bill’s supporters.

“It brings bullying out of the closet, into the light,” said Rep. Jackie Norton, D-Bangor, co-chair of the Legislature’s Education Committee, which unanimously endorsed the legislation.

“This hopefully gives school staff another tool they can use to make our schools safe places to be,” Norton, a high school teacher, said in an interview after the ceremony.

Maine is now the 18th state to enact a law that asks schools to pay particular attention to bullying, harassment and sexual harassment.

The new law requires school boards to define bullying, harassment and sexual harassment and to develop new policies to deal with the behaviors by September 2006. School officials will be guided by model policies, which will be created at no cost to the state by a subcommittee of the Maine Children’s Cabinet. The Maine School Management Association has offered to help craft the new model policies that schools will be able to use to build on an existing law that requires a student code of conduct.

In addition, the 20-member subcommittee, which includes educators, child development experts and parents, will create training programs so teachers and staff will know how to deal with those behaviors in the classroom. The training will be available free of charge at conferences and through distance education and the Internet.

Before this law, the handbooks and manuals created by schools to govern student behavior didn’t specify particular behaviors, according to Grose.

While harassment and sexual harassment may be briefly mentioned, the age-old problem of bullying largely has been ignored, she said.

Also, the current policies are inadequate, often neglecting to clearly lay out procedures that could be used not only to help the victim but also to protect the schools from lawsuits, Grose said.

“Many schools have policies, but they are so disparate in how or if they define what bullying is. Under this law, schools will still have the freedom to update their policies to meet the unique needs of their communities, but they’ll have some guidance from a group of experts.

“Most importantly, teachers and staff will get the training they need to better cope with what’s going on in and out of the classroom,” Grose said.

As she worked to pass the bill, Grose recalled that people sometimes would minimize bullying, calling it “part of growing up.”

But it shouldn’t be a rite of passage, according to Grose who noted that some victims of bullying have committed suicide because they became depressed.

“They can’t sleep, don’t want to go to school and feel a tremendous sense of terror,” she said.

Drew Landry, a Saco Middle School pupil who attended Wednesday’s ceremony, said in an interview that he became depressed after being bullied.

But with help from his parents, counselors and the school, the 12-year-old has recovered and even offered testimony in support of the bill during the public hearing before the Education Committee.

Thanks to the new legislation, “we’re doing something so that other kids won’t have to go through this,” said his mother, Deborah.