MUNICIPAL PREVENTION MEASURES On Oct. 3, the city council for North Tonawa-
nda, New York got the nation’s attention when members unanimously amended an existing law to include bullying to the list of curfew violations for which parents could be held financially accountable. What set North Tonawanda’s law apart from similar ordinances was that not only could parents be fined up to $250 for their child’s boorish behav- ior, but if their actions continued, the parents could spend up to 15 days in jail. Te Council also eliminated a provision that required only a warn- ing for the first offense. If the offense is deemed serious enough, the parents do not get a pass but instead pay the fine or go straight to jail. North Tonawanda City Attorney Luke Brown said bullying was added to the ordinance because of a small group of expelled students that loitered near the school to harass students as they exited the building. “Tese kids were blatantly bullying other stu-
dents,” Brown said. “Even if only one or two stu- dents are getting bullied, that’s enough to warrant doing something.” Brown said he was unaware of how
prevalent bullying is in the school district, adding that it was too soon to gauge the law’s effectiveness. “So far, we haven’t had to bring anybody in, which could indicate that it is working as a deterrent,” he said. “Hopefully parents will get in front if they see anything and avoid having to go through the legal process.” North Tonawanda City School District Superin- tendent Gregory Woytila declined to be inter- viewed for this article. North Tonawanda joins a group of several small
Wisconsin towns who adopted similar ordinances in 2015. In Shawano, Wisconsin, parents could be fined $366 for the first offense and $681 for the second offense within a year. Parents in Monona, Wiscon- sin, are fined $124 for the first offense and $187 for the second offense. Te architect of the law, Plover Wisconsin Police Chief Dan Ault, called the potential jail time in Tonawanda an “attention getter.” He says the Plover law is a deterrent because only four or five warnings have been issued, but no citations. “Ultimately, my first job is to prevent crime,”
Ault said. “We come at parents with a warning and a conversation and we will work with them to find a solution to the root problem. If we have parents
32 School Transportation News • JANUARY 2018
who will not accept responsibility and change the behavior of their child we say now it’s time to pay the piper, just like we do with everything else.” Ault said he has gotten calls from all over the
country, Canada and Australia asking about the law’s effectiveness. “If I can prevent one kid from bringing a gun to school or one kid from committing suicide, then mission accomplished,” Ault said. “We are doing something different and to me it makes sense. I spoke with PDs around the country and this ordinance is being enacted. I am working with lawmakers and the goal is to see this or a form of this as state law”
A GORDIAN KNOT? To experts and activists, bullying behavior is a
Gordian knot of Alexander the Great lore that can- not be unraveled by any one entity, be it schools, parents or law enforcement. Instead, it takes a village to identify the loophole. “Tere has been such a lack of understanding of bullying,” Ault said, adding that truancy is another effect of bullying. “People who have not been bullied do not understand the true consequences. Education is the key.” Ault said it’s also about getting parents to engage with their children. Tey are not aware of what their kids are doing in school because they don’t have the conversation, he said. “Bullying is a learned behavior.” Pacer Center’s Lindgren said the community must come together to address the issue of bully- ing behavior. “We really believe here that bullying prevention is a community issue so it’s not up to just one school, one organization or one parent, Lindgren said. “It’s up to the entire community. Tat’s why at Pacer we promote shared information where everyone is working collaboratively to create a safe environment for children.” Meanwhile, Ault puts the responsibility squarely
on parents. “Bullying is all over the place and it’s a problem no matter how many incidents you have. It’s not the school’s responsibility, not the police’s responsibility, it is the parents’ responsibility,” he said. “Tey have the most influence and authority to shape and change their child’s behavior. If this (law) is the mechanism that will help that, so be it.”
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