SB 179, if enacted, will require major changes in your school’s response to bullying.  Here is a quick list of some of the major features of this lengthy and important piece of legislation:

1. It makes it clear that “a single significant act” can be “bullying.”

2. It defines bullying to include behavior that causes a student “to experience substantial negative mental health effects.”

3. It defines “cyberbullying” to include off-campus conduct in certain instances.

4. Requires notice to the parent of a bullying incident “not later than the next school day.”

5. Requires procedures for handling anonymous reports of bullying.

6. Calls for DAEP or expulsion for students who engage in bullying that encourages a minor to commit or attempt to commit suicide, incites violence against a minor through group bullying, or releases or threatens to release “intimate visual material” of a minor.

7. Requires reports to law enforcement relating to assault or harassment.

8. Requires counselors to serve as an “impartial mediator for interpersonal conflicts” involving bullying or cyberbullying.

9. Allows for the issuance of a subpoena prior to filing a suit to investigate “an injury to or death of a minor.”

10. Imposes liability for engaging in “actionable bullying”—directing “bullying communication” toward a person younger than 18.

11. Includes the parents of a student who has engaged in “actionable bullying” as potential defendants in a suit seeking civil damages.

12. Makes it a criminal offense to “intentionally and with malice” direct communication to a minor which is “harassing, extreme and outrageous” and which causes the suicide of the minor, or an attempted suicide that results in serious bodily injury; or doing so in concert with two or more other people.

13. Makes it a criminal offense to “intentionally and with malice” direct communication toward a person younger than 18 that threatens to make available to a third party “intimate visual material” of the child, and which causes the suicide of the child or an attempted suicide that results in serious bodily injury.

This one is called David’s Law. Keep an eye on it.

DAWG BONE: WE CONTINUE TO LOOK FOR WAYS TO REDUCE OR ELIMINATE BULLYING.

File this one under: LEGISLATION 2017

Tomorrow: Tossed into the windshield—who is liable?