T’bonne schools crack down on Cyberbullying

With computers and the Internet being a permanent fixture regarding the education of children, Terrebonne Parish wants to ensure each student has an equal opportunity for a safe learning environment, and cyberbullying won’t be taken lightly.

“The Terrebonne Parish School Board is committed to maintaining a safe, orderly, civil and positive learning environment so that no student feels threatened while in school or participating in school-related activities,” Terrebonne Parish School Board’s policy on bullying reads.

In order to combat cyberbullying at the school level, Superintendent Philip Martin said schools have an Internet filtering program.

“We have a very efficient filtering software where neither students nor employees have access to most of these sites where these types of bullying conversations can happen,” Martin said. “So, at school we’re fairly comfortable that it’s not going to happen during the school hours, but when kids leave school they enter a different realm and that takes on all the different connotations and configurations you could possibly imagine.”

That’s why the policy addresses both cyberbullying on and off school property.

“Cyberbullying shall mean harassment, intimidation, or bullying of a student on school property by another student using a computer, mobile phone or other interactive or digital technology or harassment, intimidation or bullying of a student while off school property by another student using any such means when the action or actions are intended to have an effect on the student when the student is on school property,” the policy states.

And as a result, administration has received very few reports of cyberbullying in Terrebonne.

“Some cases are more significant and there are no two that are exactly the same, and you respond to each on its own individual merits and severity,” Martin said. “Fortunately, I have not had a lot of issues to deal with this, but we have had some and have had a couple that are fairly significant.”

Board member Rickie Pitre showed concern regarding how to implement policing on the policy, so cyberbullying cases remain few.

“We can adopt all the policies we want but, especially in light of the coverage that’s out there now, what preventative measures do you have in place?” he asked Martin.

According to the policy, each school’s principal is responsible for receiving reports of bullying. These reports will immediately be directed to Martin, who will then investigate the report and take immediate steps to protect the complainant while the investigation is pending.

Disciplinary action will be taken as outlined in the Student Code of Conduct, the policy states, and the student and his or her guardian will be notified of the disciplinary action to be implemented.

“This is one difficult policy to enforce,” Roger “Dale” DeHart, District 7 member said. “I’m glad we don’t have a lot of calls about this.”