West Deptford School Board Gets First Look at Bullying

In the first few weeks of classes at West Deptford schools, there were 31 investigations into reports of harassment, bullying or intimidation, as required under new state law, Superintendent Kevin Kitchenman told the school board Monday night.

Just six of those investigations were found to be actual incidents, however, and Kitchenman told the board that school districts around the county and state are facing similar statistics, as they try to sort out what actually constitutes bullying, harassment or intimidation under the new law.

“Everyone’s in the same boat–we’re all kind of struggling to get a handle on this,” he said.

The statistics the board received were the first of what will be a regular, recurring summary of investigations and incidents, but there will still be formal reports from Kitchenman on the overall statistics.

Those will happen twice a year–the superintendent said the plan is to present last year’s statistics this fall, with reports in the spring and fall of 2012 reporting on the previous six months, respectively.

Meanwhile, training for school staff members–everyone from night custodians to guidance counselors to secretaries to coaches–is continuing, and Kitchenman said he expects the bulk of school employees will have been trained on the new standards by November.

“One of our hurdles is we have a lot of coaches who don’t teach in the district,” he said, though district officials are considering online training as a measure to help train some of the spring adjunct coaches.