Board Hears Report On Harassment, Intimidation And Bullying

Jackson School District Director of Security Raymond Milewski addresses the Board of Education during a recent Board meeting concerning the second reporting period of the Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying report. (Photo by Bob Vosseller)

  JACKSON – The Board of Education heard an update on the school district’s Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) report from Raymond Milewski, the School District’s director of security.

  By State law, every district has to record statistics of these offenses. The name is a little misleading because a HIB is not just logged when someone is bullied; they have to be bullied for something like skin color, sexuality, or religion in order for the state to recognize it. These incidents also, of course, only include those that are reported to school officials.

  “We did see a noticeable decrease in many of our categories with the exception of our harassment and bullying cases,” Milewski said, compared to this time last year. “We did have a total of 30 cases reported for report period two as compared to 28 last year at this time.”

  He noted that all the other numbers in various categories had gone down which include violence, vandalism, weapons and abuse cases. “Most of our categories were zero in such areas as fights, threats, sexual offenses with the exception of our harassment and bullying case. On the elementary level we had a total of 17 cases reported in period two.”

  Board member Gus Acevedo asked for more details about the 10 cases reported at the Switlik Elementary School.

  “We did have multiple cases reported. There had been previous incidents reported before during report period one that carried over to report period two. There have been HIB complaints and counter complaints which did increase our numbers at the Switlik Elementary School,” Milewski replied.

  The next slide of his PowerPoint presentation showed the number of incidents for the school district’s secondary schools. “We did have a number of cases reported in regards to our violence at Liberty, Memorial and also McAuliffe. Our total number of HIB cases were 13,” he added.

  Vandalism cases from across all of Jackson’s 10 schools was zero.

  There were no weapons offenses for report period two across all of Jackson’s schools, Milewski said. As far as action taken by the school district by administrators, “there were three incidents where the police were notified and there was no complaint filed in those cases. There were no cases of police notified and a case filed.”

  He added that there was one case of in school suspension and nine cases of out of school suspensions. Milewski said in a breakdown of student offenders and student victims there was a total of 10 student offenders and one student victim.

  He added that communication is promoted among all school staff members. “We try to push that information along and to address these issues as we become aware of them and as quickly as we can.”

  Board Vice President Michael Walsh asked about HIB reporting, “How many, guesstimating, would be social media involved?”

  Milewski put those numbers up on the screen moments later and explained them to the Board. He noted that the district’s anti-bullying specialists (ABS) at the district’s middle schools had a change over from report period one. “We had a change of personnel at the Goetz School. Many of the programs we saw in report period one were carried over to report period two.”

  Milewski presented a breakdown of alleged and confirmed HIB investigations from 2020 to 2021. There was three confirmed HIB cases at the elementary level for period two as opposed to two cases in 2020. At the district’s secondary schools there were two confirmed HIBs. “We did have our share of HIB cases for period two. The motivating factor for our confirmed HIBs, color was the motivation for two of those cases.”

  Answering Walsh’s question about the location of the HIB incidents, Milewski said “10 of those incidents was on school grounds. We did see a shift from last year in which we had a larger number of cases that occurred in our classrooms. In report period two we did see a shift of many of those cases turning to internet-based cases and cell phone-based cases. Some of that is involved with social media,” Milewski said.

  He noted four school bus cases and four incidents that occurred off school grounds. He said in the classification of some of the cases “many of them are common. Demeaning type of behavior, offending text messages, name calling, offensive comments and so on.”

  Milewski said the outcome of all the HIB incidents involved parent student conferences, out of school suspensions, and suspensions of privileges. “There was a case where a letter of apology was issued. Some of the remedial measures that were utilized were counseling and mediation. In self-assessment grade for our schools in 2021 we saw a bit of a decrease in the number from last year. The number dropped down to 64.1 and this is directly related to the pandemic, and some of the changes in personnel for period two.”

  Acevedo asked how off school grounds information was obtained. “Most of those incidents are reported via telephone or e-mail of which our schools are notified of the complaint. In most cases it is a parent that will report the incident to our school administrators,” Milewski responded.

  Board member John Burnetsky asked what could be done to “move it back to the 70s” in scoring the district, meaning how incident numbers can be lowered. “I understand the personnel concerns but a seven point drop is concerning.”

  “I am hopeful moving into the new school year and getting back into a more normal routine and a school schedule, that our ABS members can get back to their normal schedules and be able to implement these programs that they have been accustomed to primary to the pandemic,” Milewski said. He noted that trainings for ABS members were being scheduled for the upcoming year that might also include principals to review procedures “and how we can do things better.”