Should schools be made accountable for bullying?

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 8:56am

rjpf1980 wrote: »

You can't save a kid from killing themselves as much as you imagine you can.

And with an attitude like that, you never will.

rjpf1980 · 07-09-2016 9:00am

Speedwell wrote: »

And with an attitude like that, you never will.

You can counsel a kid you can give the kid on medication you can change schools you can encourage them to take up sports and try and teach them how to be assertive and make friends etc etc but you can't stop them from being hypersensitive due to their mental problems and killing themselves. You can't know the unpredictable and you can't stop it anymore than you can stop rain from falling.

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 9:02am

rjpf1980 wrote: »

You can counsel a kid you can give the kid on medication you can change schools you can encourage them to take up sports and try and teach them how to be assertive and make friends etc etc but you can't stop them from being hypersensitive due to their mental problems and killing themselves. You can't know the unpredictable and you can't stop it anymore than you can stop rain from falling.

You go right on thinking fatalistically that there is nothing you can do to save a life so you might as well not try. Those of us who give a damn will be over here doing what we can (and saving lives, incidentally, but I won't waste my breath telling you how many no-longer-kids credit me with helping them over a rough spot or two).

El_Duderino 09 · 07-09-2016 9:02am

Speedwell wrote:

Because the biggest influence on children is the family, schools need to hold themselves responsible for enforcing social behavior when the child's family behaves badly.

This is obviously not the case.. parents have SOME responsibility too.

Peregrinus wrote:

They already have that authority. Schools act in loco parentis, remember, meaning that the extent of their authority is similar to the extent of a parent's authority. Just as a child's parents can discipline a child for what the child does outside the home, so a school can discipline a student for what the student does outside the school. So, for example, a school could have - and many schools do have - a responsible internet use policy, in which cyberbullying of one student by another would be a disciplinary matter, regardless of where the student happened to be when the offending material was posted.

I thought in loco parentis means that the school is in the position of a parent while the children were in school, plus school activities such as going to a match or school tour. I didn't think it applied at the weekend or during school holidays or after the children go home in the evening.

Cyber bullying is surely a special case because it leaves a paper trail si you can actually provide solid evidence for what happened. Most other forms of bullying are subtle and some involve negative action such as exclusion.

Can a school be held accountable for a child being bullied by exclusion on a Saturday morning at football training with the local club?

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 9:03am

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is obviously not the case.. parents have SOME responsibility too.

Sorry, I had thought I'd been careful to say that it was the case when the family wasn't adequate.

mariaalice · 07-09-2016 9:03am

Some schools do deal with it better than other, I know of a school where at the merest hint of bullying 3 pupils were suspended for 3 days each, but that doesn't stop bullying, constant awareness not just a talk at the beginning of the year should be the norm. How are school suppose to monitor social media 24 hour a day? or what about the school bus?.

Schools could got with the motive means and opportunity theory, you will never stop the motive it seem to be something about human nature( society seems to be very reluctant to exam that ) but you can do something about the means and opportunity apparently a lot of bullying occurs in the hallway, lockers and ques in schools, so arrange the environment better.

Bullies seem to fall in two categories those with an inflated sense of themselves and those who feel very inadequate about themselves use power over an other as a way of making themselves feel better about themselves.

El_Duderino 09 · 07-09-2016 9:05am

Speedwell wrote:

You go right on thinking fatalistically that there is nothing you can do to save a life so you might as well not try. Those of us who give a damn will be over here doing what we can (and saving lives, incidentally, but I won't waste my breath telling you how many no-longer-kids credit me with helping them over a rough spot or two).

I don't think rgpf 1980 said you shouldn't try. In fact they listed a good few approaches that you should try

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 9:07am

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I don't think rgpf 1980 said you shouldn't try. In fact they listed a good few approaches that you should try

Yes, and wound up by saying that there was basically nothing you could do to predict or stop it anyway... which is literally "dead wrong".

Tombo2001 · 07-09-2016 9:07am

rjpf1980 wrote: »

How was it preventable?
His classmates could have only been slagging him and he took it to heart because he was mentally ill. People with depression and anxiety are hypersensitive to criticism and that's that. How were a bunch of kids to know he would take his own life?
The teachers are not mental health professionals. They are teachers and they have a job to do. They can give out to kids punish them and raise their behavior with their parents etc but they can't police kids every moment of the day. Kids will form groups and cliques and the odd kids will be left out and slagging and teasing and pushing and shoving and mean carry on like wrecking a kids books or whatever are just part of school.
You can't save a kid from killing themselves as much as you imagine you can.

That's getting into the realm of victim blaming.

The OP has told us that (I) the kid was being bullied and (II) the kid committed suicide. Most reasonably people could see there is a potential connection between the two.

El_Duderino 09 · 07-09-2016 9:14am

Speedwell wrote:

Sorry, I had thought I'd been careful to say that it was the case when the family wasn't adequate.

Then it's a state issue but why the school? You're talking about turning schools into a cross between G4S, MI5, social workers and Mary Poppins. G4S for security in school, MI5 to investigate any suspicious parents and make sure they are doing a good enough job. Mary Poppins and social workers to deal with parents an children outside of the school and chaperone children so they don't get bullied anywhere ever. Will They have time to teach?

Bullying has always been around but now we are getting serious about taking a radical approach to stamping it out. You can't just expect teachers to happily take on this huge new role of social worker and guardian angel

El_Duderino 09 · 07-09-2016 9:17am

Speedwell wrote:

Yes, and wound up by saying that there was basically nothing you could do to predict or stop it anyway... which is literally "dead wrong".

They said you can do those things and still not prevent ALL cases of suicide. Not that you shouldn't ever try. I think you're the only one saying you should bother.

rjpf1980 · 07-09-2016 9:18am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

That's getting into the realm of victim blaming.

The OP has told us that (I) the kid was being bullied and (II) the kid committed suicide. Most reasonably people could see there is a potential connection between the two.

Bullying isn't right but bullying victims do attract it.

Tombo2001 · 07-09-2016 9:19am

So we are nearly 6 pages into this thread.

Has anyone bothered going to the Dept of Education website to see what the policy on bullying is?

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 9:21am

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Then it's a state issue but why the school? You're talking about turning schools into a cross between G4S, MI5, social workers and Mary Poppins. G4S for security in school, MI5 to investigate any suspicious parents and make sure they are doing a good enough job. Mary Poppins and social workers to deal with parents an children outside of the school and chaperone children so they don't get bullied anywhere ever. Will They have time to teach?

Bullying has always been around but now we are getting serious about taking a radical approach to stamping it out. You can't just expect teachers to happily take on this huge new role of social worker and guardian angel

I think what I'd actually said is that school is the largest influence on a child after the family.

Little CuChulainn · 07-09-2016 9:26am

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

Adults can be fired from their jobs or brought to court for harassment for workplace bullying. Employers are required by law to comply with anti bullying policies which are considered part of health and safety regulations. http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/health_and_safety/health_safety_work.html

Why is it not the same for schools and teachers who are responsible for the students?

Why is it the teachers fault? Teachers are primarily there to teach. Surely the parents who raise the kid should be the first port of call? a teacher only sees a kid for a few hours a day. What exactly can they do in those few hours to override what the kid will experience at home and how they have been raised to date?

Yes teachers have a role to play in identifying bullying incidents and reporting them but the people who should be required to take action first and foremost are the parents of the children involved. If that does not work then they should be looking at counseling, suspensions or even expulsions for the kids involved.

mariaalice · 07-09-2016 9:26am

rjpf1980 wrote: »

Bullying isn't right but bullying victims do attract it.

The wrong way to look at it, why is society so reluctant to look at the issue from a psychological point of view, why is the bully not asked to consider their manipulative behaviour in taking pleasure in having power over someone else and just plain told to stop and that they could be committing an offence.

Extreme sensitivity in some people is a issue and it is something that they should have counselling for, but its should not be conflated with bullying.

El_Duderino 09 · 07-09-2016 9:29am

Speedwell wrote:

I think what I'd actually said is that school is the largest influence on a child after the family.

That's not all you said.

Speedwell wrote:

Because the biggest influence on children is the family, schools need to hold themselves responsible for enforcing social behavior when the child's family behaves badly.

You also said that the school should hold myself responsible for enforcing social behaviour when the child's family behaves badly.

I disagree and I have no idea why a school should be able to find out that information about the family and how the school should be held accountable for 'enforcing social behaviour'.

That's way beyond the remit of a school and way outside the training of teachers

Peregrinus · 07-09-2016 9:36am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

So we are nearly 6 pages into this thread.

Has anyone bothered going to the Dept of Education website to see what the policy on bullying is?

You could guess it without going there. The Dept of Ed position is that every primary and post-primary school should have, and should implement, an anti-bullying policy, and should review both the policy and its implementation regularly.

But the question raised in this thread is not whether schools should have anti-bullying policies - that's a no-brainer, really - but whether they should have legal liability for injuries inflicted by bullying. The Department doesn't really have a position on that because that's a matter for the courts, not the Department. But I think if a victim of bullying sued the school for failing to discharge its duty of care to him, and the school turned out not to have an anti-bullying strategy or had a strategy that fell signficantly short of what the Department's extensive guidance suggests is appropriate, that would be a relevant factor in considering whether the school had discharged its duty of care.

Peregrinus · 07-09-2016 9:38am

rjpf1980 wrote: »

Bullying isn't right but bullying victims do attract it.

Yes, and women might not suffer so much sexual harassment if they weren't so damned attractive, the little teases. :rolleyes: But if I was an employer defending a claim based on sexual harassment in the workplace, I wouldn't run that defence.

Tombo2001 · 07-09-2016 9:39am

Peregrinus wrote: »

You could guess it without going there. The Dept of Ed position is that every primary and post-primary school should have, and should implement, an anti-bullying policy, and should review both the policy and its implementation regularly.

But the question raised in this thread is not whether schools should have anti-bullying policies - that's a no-brainer, really - but whether they should have legal liability for injuries inflicted by bullying. The Department doesn't really have a position on that because that's a matter for the courts, not the Department. But I think if a victim of bullying sued the school for failing to discharge its duty of care to him, and the school turned out not to have an anti-bullying strategy or had a strategy that fell signficantly short of what the Department's extensive guidance suggests is appropriate, that would be a relevant factor in considering whether the school had discharged its duty of care.

Clearly the answer is no.

However, if you read the guidelines......you will see that each school is required to have a documented Intervention Strategy for bullying which it is required to apply consistently where bullying occurs. So perhaps the issue arises where the Intervention Strategy has not been followed, or where they don't have an intervention strategy in the first place.

Point I would make though, is that the onus is ultimately on the parents to make sure the Intervention Strategy is there, and that it is followed. No point in finding out after the event that the Principal doesn't know how to handle bullying.

seamus · 07-09-2016 9:41am

Speedwell wrote: »

We don't allow people to bully and harass and abuse each other in the workplace, but when it's kids it's more acceptable?

This is kind of the key question we have to ask.

I think it's fair to say that children are idiots so to hold them rigidly to the same standards as you would a person in the workplace is a bit overboard.

But that doesn't mean anything goes, obviously.

Workplace bullying is still a problem, but it's really only in the last 20/30 years that we've actively moved to stamp it out. In the 70s or 80s, if your boss was a bully or a bit of a lech, you just kind of had to get on with it, or leave. There was no recourse, he was the boss. And society would tell you to get over it and just get on with it.

Schools are still stuck in that place. School bullying is to a certain extent still seen as a rite of passage, something that happens everywhere and you just have to suck it up.*
We need to move on from this. Students who are bullied need to be encouraged to report every instance, and schools need to get tough on it. A proper disciplinary system with expulsion for repeat offenders. None of this face-to-face discussion nonsense when it's clear it's not an argument but actual bullying. Every violent incident should be reported to the Gardai, as a matter of policy.

And incidents outside the school need to be treated just as seriously. A lot of schools will say "not my problem" if outside incident are reported, so the more vicious bullies will wait until after school to take action against their victims. Schools need to take ownership of every incident, 24/7, during the school year.

*There is a known "rite of passage" bias, where people in authority will require those coming up the ladder behind them to undergo the same hardships they had to endure, even when they serve no real purpose or are even counter-productive.
This has been proven especially in interviews - even when interviewers are told that their interview techniques have no merit, they continue to use them on the basis that the interviewer had to endure the same questions and challenges when they joined

Peregrinus · 07-09-2016 9:47am

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Clearly the answer is no.

However, if you read the guidelines......you will see that each school is required to have a documented Intervention Strategy for bullying which it is required to apply consistently where bullying occurs. So perhaps the issue arises where the Intervention Strategy has not been followed, or where they don't have an intervention strategy in the first place.

Point I would make though, is that the onus is ultimately on the parents to make sure the Intervention Strategy is there, and that it is followed. No point in finding out after the event that the Principal doesn't know how to handle bullying.

Well, no. The onus is very much on the school to have, and operate, a strategy. If they haven't got one, or don't follow it, "parents never demanded it!" won't be any kind of defence or excuse. As a parent you are entitled to expect that the school has, and follows, a strategy. Of course you can enquire into that if you want to, but the school should have one whether you enquire or not, and if the matter does end up in the courts that's certainly how the courts will approach it.

Burial. · 07-09-2016 10:51am

Schools have an extensive anti bullying policy that is continuously refined and reviewed and bullying is a very common topic both informally and formally in the staff room. Each teacher will obviously make their own notes on suspicions of bullying occurring in the classroom and try and rectify it there and cross referencing between the teachers on yard duty happens too. And phone calls home to bring in the parents are very common. It's a very precise and structured system that is mandatory in every school now. I hate when people say "from my experience nothing was done", that's not to say it hasn't changed since then, and it has. Kids are even being extensively instructed about online security and safety, something which was alien only a few years ago. Times change, don't tar everything with the brush that was painting back in the stone age. And whats more is that in person bullying is becoming rarer and rarer due to the implementation of the anti bullying policies which is a reason why cyber bullying is so prevalent, but there's little to nothing a school and it's staff can do there. Let's be realistic here.

07-09-2016 10:58am

seamus wrote: »

And incidents outside the school need to be treated just as seriously. A lot of schools will say "not my problem" if outside incident are reported, so the more vicious bullies will wait until after school to take action against their victims. Schools need to take ownership of every incident, 24/7, during the school year.

So if a child (who happens to go to a school) is bullied by another child (who also goes to a school) outside of school hours, it is the school's legal responsibility to do something about it?

How exactly would that work when a school has precisely zero powers over children outside school hours?

It is very easy to say 'schools' need to do this and do that. The reality is that to make that happen they need more resources and more powers. It would be absolutely outrageous to make schools and teachers legally responsible for bullying with the resources and powers they currently have.

07-09-2016 10:59am

And this returns to the obvious argument that is someone is going be made legally liable for the behaviour of a child, that person should be the parent before the school.

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 11:10am

Deleted User wrote: »

And this returns to the obvious argument that is someone is going be made legally liable for the behaviour of a child, that person should be the parent before the school.

What liability can you assign to a parent who is not only not present when the incident happens but could have had no influence over the situation at all, unlike someone who is actually present and responsible for the location, the policies, and training of the people involved, like the school and its staff?

07-09-2016 11:17am

Speedwell wrote: »

What liability can you assign to a parent who is not only not present when the incident happens but could have had no influence over the situation at all, unlike someone who is actually present and responsible for the location, the policies, and training of the people involved, like the school and its staff?

"Someone"?

Who is this person who is present? Bullying doesn't take place when teachers are present, they are smarter than that (the bullies, not the teachers).

"Responsible for the location". This is an interesting one. If my child reports bullying whilst in the Jervis centre are they legally liable? Why not if schools should be? Where does this logic stop?

And lastly, the idea that a parent "can have no influence over the situation at all" - REALLY?

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 11:18am

Deleted User wrote: »

"Someone"?

Who is this person who is present? Bullying doesn't take place when teachers are present, they are smarter than that (the bullies, not the teachers).

"Responsible for the location". This is an interesting one. If my child reports bullying whilst in the Jervis centre are they legally liable? Why not if schools should be? Where does this logic stop?

And lastly, the idea that a parent "can have no influence over the situation at all" - REALLY?

Who is responsible for a shop if you slip and fall while there are no staff members present?

Who is responsible for a location if you are required to attend and something happens to you while you are there?

And, yes, REALLY.

silverharp · 07-09-2016 11:19am

Deleted User wrote: »

And this returns to the obvious argument that is someone is going be made legally liable for the behaviour of a child, that person should be the parent before the school.

but kids have to be given space because they aren't fully responsible beings yet. Parents should be involved for sure but more in terms of social pressure. At the end of the day most bullying is under the radar, you cant make anyone legally responsible because someone doesn't like a particular child.
Things like repeated physical violence should lead in the end to expulsion if a kid is uncontrollable

Speedwell · 07-09-2016 11:21am

If you can hold a workplace responsible for "hostile work environment", there is no reason--NONE--why you can't hold a school liable for "hostile school environment".

Should schools be made accountable for bullying?

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