Bullying is defined as a situation in which a student is exposed repeatedly and over time to negative actions on the part of one or more students. Negative actions can include inappropriate gestures, written statements, verbal remarks, or physical acts of aggression that place the student in reasonable fear of harm to his person or property, or that has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student in such a way as to interfere with their education.

Bullying most often will occur when a student asserts physical or psychological power over, or is cruel to, another student perceived to be weaker than they are for an ongoing period of time.

Bullying revolves around the basic premise that there is some imbalance of power between the aggressor and the victim. This can be either physical or psychological in nature. Therefore, conflicts and arguments that develop between friends or students of comparable social and physical standing do not fall in the arena of bullying. These situations need to be mediated and are met with consequences in accordance with the School Handbook, but they are typically not considered bullying-related incidents

 Types of Bullying

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.

• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Three types of bullying:

• Verbal bullying

  • Saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:

    • Teasing, name calling, inappropriate comments, taunting, threatening to cause harm

• Social bullying

  • Referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:

    • Leaving someone out on purpose, t

      elling other children not to be friends with someone, s

      preading rumors about someone, embarrassing someone in public

• Physical bullying

  • Involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:

    • Hitting/kicking/pinching, spitting, tripping/pushing, taking or breaking someone’s things, m

      aking mean or rude hand gestures

 Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology. Electronic technology includes devices and equipment such as cell phones, computers, and tablets as well as communication tools including social media sites, text messages, chat, and websites.

Examples of cyberbullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles.

Cyberbullying is different because kids who are being cyberbullied are often bullied in person as well. Additionally, kids who are cyberbullied have a harder time getting away from the behavior.

• Cyberbullying can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and reach a kid even when he or she is alone. It can happen any time of the day or night.

• Cyberbullying messages and images can be posted anonymously and distributed quickly to a very wide audience. It can be difficult and sometimes impossible to trace the source.

• Deleting inappropriate or harassing messages, texts, and pictures is extremely difficult after they have been posted or sent.