Shared Definition of "Bullying"

Recently our staff worked on coming up with a shared definition of “bullying.”  Our school district has a renewed focus on sending a clear message that bullying behaviors are not accepted on our campuses. I would like to ask that our students, and parent community play a role in sending this same message. In order to work together, I felt it was critical to have a common definition of what “bullying” is, and perhaps just as importantly, what bullying is not. As a staff, we came up with the following draft definition for “bullying”:

Aggressive behavior that is intentional, repeated over time and involves an imbalance of power. Bullying can take many forms, such as hitting, teasing or name-calling, verbal threats, intimidation through gestures, social exclusion and sending or posting insulting messages or pictures by cell phone or online.

Note that bullying is repeated over time. An isolated incident can be very hurtful and against school rules, but is not considered bullying. It is very important to note that our teachers explicitly teach anti-bullying lessons as a part of our “Second Step” curriculum in grades K through 5^th grade. Strategies such as using “I messages” and expressing ourselves through our words help lesson the presence of bullying at Walt Disney. Additionally, students are given praise and WOW slips for demonstrating positive character traits such as responsibility and respect while at school. 

If your child does encounter bullying please support us in modeling the following behavior to your child:

• Encourage your child to communicate to the bully “Stop or I will report.”
• If the behavior persists, please report (or have your child report) bullying to your child’s teacher. Teachers and/or I will follow up on incidents of bullying with the appropriate measures.

I invite you to post a comment to provide any input or feedback you may have on our shared definition of “bullying.” We will soon work with PTA  to finalize our definition.