September 2013

Bullying Prevention

  1. Purpose/objective: The intent of this legislation (2SHB 1163, 2011 Session) is to

In an Act relating to harassment, intimidation and bullying, The Washington State legislature established a work group on anti-bullying and anti-harassment to both help maintain focus and attention on, as well as monitor progress of implementation of harassment, intimidation and bullying prevention and intervention efforts.

Specifically, the Work Group was tasked with addressing:

(a) Consider whether additional disaggregated data should be collected regarding incidents of bullying and harassment or disciplinary actions and make recommendations to the office of the superintendent of public instruction for collection of such data;

(b) Examine possible procedures for anonymous reporting of incidents of bullying and

harassment;

(c) Identify curriculum and best practices for school districts to improve school climate, create respectful learning environments, and train staff and students in de-escalation and intervention techniques;

(d) Identify curriculum and best practices for incorporating instruction about mental health, youth suicide prevention, and prevention of bullying and harassment;

(e) Recommend best practices for informing parents about the harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention policy and procedure under RCW 28A.300.285 and involving parents in improving school climate;

(f) Recommend training for district personnel who are designated as the primary contact regarding the policy and procedure and for school resource officers and other school security personnel;

(g) Recommend educator preparation and certification requirements in harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention and de-escalation and intervention techniques for teachers, educational staff associates, and school administrators;

(h) Examine and recommend policies for discipline of students and staff who harass, intimidate, or bully;

(i) In collaboration with the state board for community and technical colleges, examine and recommend policies to protect K-students attending community and technical colleges from harassment, intimidation, and bullying.

  1. Number of staff associated with this program/service (indicate where applicable):

Fiscal Year 2013

# of OSPI staff associated with this funding (FTEs):0.2

FY 13 Funding: State Appropriation: $93,000

Contracts Funded with Appropriation:

Youth Suicide Prevention Program Of this amount; $70,000 to YSPP (SEE ATTACHED)

This left $23,000 to the work of HIB prevention & intervention across 295 districts.

CONTRACT called for:

-Work with OSPI to conduct Train the Trainers in each of the 9 ESD’s

-Provide RTW parent trainings in King, Pierce and others counties

-Provide a minimum of 12 trainings in YSPP school-based curricula

-Assist school districts and schools in crisis response plans and partner with OSPI Safety Center in making resources available on the School Safety Center website

-Provide WA state school safety advisory committee members with a semi-annual YSPP update.

3.Are federal or other funds contingent on state funding? If yes, explain. No

4.Is continued funding needed in the next biennium? Yes

5. What is the current status of this program’s implementation?

YSPP contract completed – (SEE ATTACHED)

There is a Leg. Report due on Dec. 1. A previous, brief update is ATTACHED

Work Group – ongoing until 1.2016; progress on the work; meets monthly; staffed by M Donlin; information can be found on the linked page.

6.When will the project be completed? On-going

7.First year funded? FY2012

8.State funding since inception:

Fiscal Year / Amount
FY13 / $93,000
FY12 / $159,000

9.Programmatic changes since inception (if any):

10.Major challenges faced by the program:

Lack of sufficient implementation funding;

Lack of statewide training funding;

In particular, lack of support for HIB Compliance Officer training

11.Future opportunities: WA is ahead of the curve in many ways. We will continue to address HIB and its related issues in the future.

Beneficiaries: staff students and families in all 295 districts.

12.Statutory and/or Budget language:

Budget Proviso: 2ESHB 1087 Section 501 (1)(h) $159,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2012 and $93,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2013 are provided solely for the implementation of 2SHB 1163 (Bullying Prevention). The bill requires OSPI to convene an ongoing workgroup on school bullying and harassment prevention. Within the amounts provided, $140,000 is for youth suicide prevention activities.

YSPP FINAL REPORT

YSPP Contract with OSPI

Quarterly Report: FYE 2013

The Youth Suicide Prevention Program (YSPP) is pleased to report successful completion of all deliverables in our FYE 2013 contract with OSPI. With OSPI’s support, we professionally evaluated our elementary school social and emotional learning curriculum; trained representatives of dozens of Washington State school districts in teaching our three classroom curricula and staff at every Educational Service District in teaching implementation trainings themselves; created an online tutorial for our state middle school health education assessment on suicide prevention; supported schools across the state in creating and refining their policies and procedures around suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention; and partnered with the School Safety Center to begin work on creating a model crisis plan to make available to schools and districts. Thanks to this funding, implementation of the Washington State Youth Suicide Prevention Plan gained momentum this year. The following is a summary of our progress on the deliverables outlined in our statement of work. YSPP is grateful for OSPI’s ongoing support and looks forward to continuing to partner in the future.

Conduct Training of Trainers in each of the nine (9) Educational Service Districts on the Youth Suicide Prevention Program school-based curricula.

YSPP completed trainings at each of the nine Educational Service Districts in Washington between October 2012 and May 2013. Serving the dual purpose of training educators in curriculum implementation and training ESD staff in teaching curriculum implementation, these trainings were a resounding success. Each Educational Service District was given a free copy of each of the three curricula (Riding the Waves for elementary school, Look Listen Link for middle school, and H.E.L.P. for high school) and a trainers’ handbook for facilitating an implementation training for each. The dates of each of these trainings were:

ESD / Date / Location
ESD 171 / 10/31/12 / Wenatchee
ESD 113 / 3/1/13 / Tumwater
ESD 123 / 3/22/13 / Pasco
ESD 105 / 3/27/13 / Yakima
ESD 114 / 4/9/13 / Bremerton
ESD 112 / 4/12/13 / Vancouver
ESD 101 / 4/22/13 / Spokane
ESD 189 / 5/2/13 / Anacortes
ESD 121 / 5/6/13 / Renton

Completed evaluation forms from these trainings, sorted by training, are in Attachment A. A list of attendees is in Attachment B.

Edit the Riding the Waves curriculum based upon the evaluation results.

The evaluation was completed and published by Marc BolanConsulting in July

2012. Modifications to the curriculum were completed in August 2012.

Provide a minimum of 12 trainings in YSPP’s School-based Curricula throughout the state as requested.

Orders for YSPP’s curricula from all over the state of Washington continued to be processed throughout the grant period. Our trainings at the ESDs, listed above, brought curriculum implementation training to an unprecedented number of educators and school counselors, representing 83 school districts and 17 government, religious, and nonprofit organizations, all of whom either already owned the appropriate curriculum or received a copy of it at the training.

A list of attendees and which curricula they received is in Attachment B.

Assist districts and schools in their Crisis Response Plans.

Under funding from OSPI as well as from King County and the state Department of Health, YSPP has worked with schools across Washington to advocate for better policies and procedures around suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. For our training series at the Educational Service Districts this year, we added discussions of policies and procedures to our presentation, hoping to begin what would be a longer conversation at the building or district levels.

Across the state, we have found schools with minimal written policies but strong practice wisdom and solid procedures. Some of YSPP’s best work in this area has been in exploring the reality of suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention with school representatives who say they have no crisis plan. While time-consuming, these conversations make crisis planning feel less intimidating and more attainable.

Requests from schools to help with crisis planning are already coming to YSPP for fall 2013.

A summary of our work on crisis planning this year and identified best practices in the field is in Attachment C.

Develop Tutorial in cooperation with Health and Fitness Program Supervisor.

YSPP contracted with Jennifer Johnson of T&J Johnson Educational Services to create the online tutorial for the middle school health assessment. Her finished tutorial was delivered to OSPI’s Lisa Rakoz, Program Supervisor for Health and Fitness Education, on June 27, 2013 and is ready for use in the upcoming school year.

Assist OSPI in providing a Model Crisis Plan for Schools on the Safety Center Website.

This project continues to be in progress. YSPP’s Director of Training has written a review of promising policies and procedures in schools she has worked with this year and developed a draft of a model school crisis plan based on best practices in crisis planning. She will be joining the School Safety Advisory Committee in order to provide ongoing support around crisis plan development.

A draft model crisis plan is in Attachment D. The plan is designed to be used as a template, with spaces for school representatives to insert the school’s name, lists of key staff, and other site-specific information. This plan may be too long and detailed to be used as a model, but there are other options:

  • Creating a flowchart-based model plan like the ones in Appendix D of this document:
  • As the state of Oregon did, revising the Maine youth suicide prevention plan to be appropriate for Washington. The plan, available in full here represents best practices in the field and could be adapted to meet the needs of districts in our state. This is far longer than YSPP’s draft model plan but provides detailed, accurate guidelines.
  • Creating a distilled checklist-based plan similar to the checklists used in the Florida plan, available here: using information included in the attached sample plan in Attachment D.

YSPP looks forward to further, more collaborative work with OSPI on promulgating crisis planning guidelines to Washington’s schools in the upcoming year.

Anti-HIB Work Group Report to the Legislature:

Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Work Group Report 2011

Prepared by

Mike Donlin, Program Supervisor, School Safety Center

Learning and Teaching Support

Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

Greg Williamson, Director

Table of Contents

Executive Summary...... 3

Introduction...... 5

The Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Work Group...... 6

Establishing the Work Group...... 6

The First Meeting of the Work Group...... 6

The Second Meeting of the Work Group...... 7

The Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) Focus Group...... 10

Conclusion...... 10

References...... 11

Executive Summary

Legislation

Recognizing harassment, intimidation, and bullying (HIB) to be problems in schools, the 2010 Legislature passed Substitute House Bill 2801 (SHB 2801) which was intended to expand the tools, information, and strategies available to districts to combat HIB. This legislation mandated that school districts update policies and procedures. The 2011 Legislature found that while updated school district HIB policies and procedures was a step in the right direction for preventing negative behaviors in schools, more needed to be done. Second Substitute House Bill 1163 (2SHB 1163) charged the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) with creating a work group focused on preventing HIB and increasing student knowledge on issues relating to student mental health and youth suicide.

Meetings

In the spring and summer of 2011, OSPI began the process of organizing the Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Work Group. Designated stakeholder groups and individuals were contacted and invited to participate.

The first meeting of the work group was held September 14, 2011, at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. At that meeting, the mandated work of the group was explained and summarized into the following nine main areas:

  1. Considering whether disaggregated data should be collected regarding incidents of HIB.
  2. Examining possible procedures for anonymous reporting of HIB.
  3. Identifying curriculum and best practices to improve school climate, create respectful learning environments, and train staff.
  4. Incorporating instruction about mental health, youth suicide, and bullying and harassment prevention.
  5. Recommending best practices for informing parents about HIB.
  6. Training primary district contact personnel.
  7. Recommending educator preparation and certification requirements.
  8. Examining discipline policies.
  9. Collaborating with the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges to examine and recommend policies to protect K–12 students attending community and technical colleges.

A second meeting was held October 12, 2011. That meeting focused more in the formal organization of the work group and began to respond to questions from the first meeting. The third meeting of the full work group is scheduled for December 7, 2011, at the Criminal Justice Training Commission in Burien, WA.

There were also two additional, small meetings held between the second and third meetings. One of these was a focus group discussion as a part of the 2011 Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) conference. The other was an online meeting held to review the contents of this report.

Current Status

As of this time, all mandated stakeholder groups have participated in the work group. The nine identified issues of the group have gone through a preliminary prioritization. The work group is establishing its internal processes and methods of operation, and efforts continue to facilitate and maximize participation for the very diverse work group membership.

This report will expand on each of these items. Agendas, minutes, and related documents can be found in the work group link on the bullying and harassment page of the School Safety Center Web site.

In addition, in a letter dated November 21, 2011, from the United States Department of Education, Washington was notified that it is one of four states selected to participate in an implementation study of youth bullying policies in schools, based on the comprehensiveness of our state bullying legislation.

Introduction

Recognizing harassment, intimidation, and bullying (HIB) to be problems in schools, the Legislature passed Substitute House Bill 2801 in 2010. This legislation was intended to expand the tools, information, and strategies available to districts to combat HIB. This legislation mandated that school districts update their policy and procedures. All districts were to adopt the new policy and procedures by August 2011. The 2011 Legislature found that having updated school district HIB policies and procedures was a step in the right direction for preventing negative behaviors in schools, but they also recognized that more steps were needed. Therefore, Second Substitute House Bill 1163 (2SHB 1163) charged the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) with creating a work group on preventing bullying, intimidation, and harassment and increasing student knowledge on issues relating to student mental health and youth suicide. This is the first report of the newly created Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Work Group, herein referred to as the work group.

The function of the work group is to help maintain focus and attention on anti-bullying and anti-harassment. To accomplish this, the work group was charged with investigating specific areas of consideration around harassment, intimidation, and bullying. These areas cover such issues as curriculum, best practices, and data collection.

More specifically, the work group was charged with investigating nine areas of consideration around harassment, intimidation, and bullying:

1.Considering whether additional disaggregated data should be collected regarding incidents of bullying and harassment or disciplinary actions, and making recommendations to OSPI for collection of such data.

2.Examining possible procedures for anonymous reporting of incidents of bullying and harassment.

3.Identifying curriculum and best practices for school districts to improve school climate, create respectful learning environments, and train staff and students in de-escalation and intervention techniques.

4.Identifying curriculum and best practices for incorporating instruction about mental health, youth suicide prevention, and prevention of bullying and harassment.

5.Recommending best practices for informing parents about the harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention policy and procedure under RCW 28A.300.285 and involving parents in improving school climate.

6.Recommending training for district personnel who are designated as the primary contact regarding the policy and procedure and for school resource officers and other school security personnel.

7.Recommending educator preparation and certification requirements in harassment, intimidation, and bullying prevention and de-escalation and intervention techniques for teachers, educational staff associates, and school administrators.

8.Examining and recommending policies for discipline of students and staff who harass, intimidate, or bully.

9.In collaboration with the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, examining and recommending policies to protect K–12 students attending community and technical colleges from harassment, intimidation, and bullying.

The work group is required to submit a biennial progress and status report to the Governor and the Education Committees of the Legislature beginning December 1, 2011, with additional reports by December 1, 2013, and December 1, 2015. The work group will terminate effective January 1, 2016. A draft of this report was made available to work group members, and on November 22, 2011, members were invited to participate in an online meeting to review the document and provide input into its final contents.

The Anti-Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying Work Group

Establishing the Work Group

Prior to convening the work group, OSPI held several pre-planning meetings in the spring and summer of 2011. To ensure representation from across stakeholder groups, the legislation mandated that the work group must include representatives from the State Board of Education, Washington State Parent Teacher Association, Washington State Association of School Psychologists, school directors, school administrators, principals, teachers, school counselors, classified school staff, youth, community organizations, and parents. OSPI contacted agencies, organizations, and individuals representing these stakeholder groups and invited them to participate in the work group. As of this report, all mandated stakeholder groups are represented, and all groups have been involved in the early planning and organizational activities of the work group. As noted below, the work group is still in the process of formalizing that representation through a process of submitting commitment letters to OSPI.