001hi welcome to another edition of Education matters uh a program where we uh discuss education issues in New Jersey I'm r I'll be your host today we'll be talking about HIV in New Jersey I think it's an issue that a lot of board members and administrators uh grapple with with me is David Nash from FEA uh which we'll explain in a little bit um and he'll be we'll have a conversation on that and uh just one more thing if you like this podcast you want to see it again just subscribe it's at the bottom uh and we'll be having another one next month so David welcome how are you my uh great to be here thanks so much for having me so just explain uh who you are with the FEA and how it relates
002to njpsa sure I'm a director of legal education and National Outreach for the foundation for educational Administration a lot of folks would know me as the person who oversees the legal one program we do school law training for really everyone involved in our schools uh from board members to parents and teachers and course School principles um we are constantly working on a wide range of legal issues and trying to educate everybody but the issue that we get asked about more than anything is harassment intimidation and bullying um the work that I do is uh affiliated with the New Jersey principes and supervisors Association that is we're kind of the professional development arm of uh New Jersey principles and supervisors and it's really wonderful being in this role before I was here I served many years
003as legal council representing School administrators when legal issues came up it's better times to help people before they're in trouble so we started legal one great and I've seen you speak on the HIV harassment intimidation and bullying uh so I know you're well versed in this issue but let's get I think what I hear the most one of the things is would is bullying is it what because people I think they all have their own personal idea of what bullying is but let's look at the law yes and of course it's can feel like a very personal issue if you've experienced it in some way yourself you know there can be visceral reaction to the concept so bullying is very specifically defined in New Jersey and actually you see a specific definition for harassment intimidation
004or bullying it's all considered one thing so you do have to have certain elements in New Jersey to have bullying you need to have a student student who's a victim who has been singled out uh because of some particular characteristic either an actual or perceived characteristic about that student could be something like race ethnicity gender religion disability uh student who's perceived as overweight new kid in the school but you need some characteristic you need to have a substantial disruption for that student so something that's interfering with their ability to uh be in school and function well um you need specific harm it could be physical harm it could be emotional harm it could be fear it could be something that makes the student feel demeaned because of who they are or a group they're part
005of or something that creates a hostile educational environment so the student isn't able to function well in school so you really have to make sure that we have all those elements um and we do have of course some you know concerning behavior that might not meet that technical definition but it's still something important that school districts would address even if it's not HIV let me just reemphasize that so there could be an incident it may not be billing but what you're saying is it still means it wasn't correct and so some I think there's a you and I were talking about this sometimes people say if it's not declared billing then that that are innocent no we're just talking that there might be a conflict there might be a different type of uh way to
006address it of course I mean you know simple example two students are out on a playground um they're having a disagreement and one student hits the other uh clearly that's a violation of the code of student conduct it's an issue the district would take seriously and address um we don't know yet whether that would be bullying was the student singled out because of some particular characteristic did this cause substantial disruption or harm for the student so there's more to the analysis to figure out whether it's bullying but you already know it's unacceptable conduct okay and for those uh watching this on their Facebook YouTube If you have a question you can put it in the chat room I'll relay it on um one of my questions would be and I get this often is can
007a staff member be accused bul we do see that generally you're looking at students who are the alleged aggressors in these situations but we have seen you know all levels of staff from AIDS to teachers to counselors to administrators uh technically even a board member uh could fall under someone who's accused of bullying um so in those situations you know some additional considerations come into play about how you do the investigation so for example if a teacher was accused of bullying you wouldn't want to have an anti-bullying specialist who is in the same bargaining unit okay doing that investigation so there's some different um process that we have to think about but certainly you could have a staff member accused of bullying and a staff member just cannot accuse a student of bullying them can
008they that's right and that we get that question a lot right what if the staff member feels bullied by one of their students there are other rules for that school districts have a code of conduct for students you're supposed to be respectful to your um to the staff members that you're dealing with you're not supposed to threaten them you're not supposed to do things to disrupt the classroom so you know we have other rules for that but it wouldn't fall under our bullying law okay um I guess we have a theme here that just because it's not bullying there are other ways to address issues absolutely the other thing is what are the parents right in both sides if their son is son or daughter is accused of bullying and or if they're the their
009student their son or daughter is bulling sure so great question and the rights are pretty extensive for parents um first parents have a right to know um that their child either um may have been targeted for bullying or has been accused of engaging in bullying Behavior so notice that there is an allegation and that there will be an investigation um it's kind of the first right um parents um have a right if they disagree with the outcome of the investigation uh to ask for a hearing before the Board of Education that would be in closed session of course you don't want the world having to listen to very sensitive uh information but in closed session they could us you know indicate to the board of ed why they disagree with the outcome of that investigation
010um in every case the board of education is charged with voting to either affirm the results of the investigation modify or reject the results of that investigation so that happens in every case uh parents would also have appeal rights beyond that if they disagreed with the outcome they could appeal to the commissioner of Education if they disagreed with the commissioner they could appeal in state court if they felt their child was the victim of discrimination they would have other options under state and federal law to potentially bring a discrimination claim so there's you know very extensive rights one right that a parent doesn't have and sometimes you know this can be a sensitive topic a school districts do have a right to interview kids uh without parent permission without parents being PR present uh without
011parents having to approve who the interviewer is um and that's you know for good Common Sense reasons if you're trying to figure out what happened in any sort of an incident in school uh sometimes you need to work quickly so the US Supreme Court 50 years ago in a case called gosi Lopez made clear that school officials have the right to interview kids have the right to try to determine what happened and reach conclusions without having to um have parent permission to do that or schools couldn't really function can they um if you you have a punishment for someone who is is a Buller um do they get to the the victim parents do they get to know what the that is that punishment was yeah and they don't and that can be frustrating um
012so we have federal law that comes into play here the family educational rights and Privacy Act uh which You Know Places some pretty strong confidentiality limits on what school districts can can share so parents would have a right to know that their child was the victim of bullying if that's the finding they would have a right to know that discipline was imposed as per the code of student conduct but generally speaking they don't have the right to know the specifics now I say generally because sometimes they have to know for example if one of the um responses is that the students cannot sit next to each other cannot um you know play together or or work together um it's important for both parents to understand that and for the students directly to understand that so
013you can run into some particular circumstances where the parent needs to know some information but generally they're not going to find out exactly what the discipline was I guess that's because generally student things are private we can't we can't talk about boards can't talk about students by name they usually have numbers and of that sort and I think we have to communicate that to the parents sometimes yes and and you know I think one way to get parents understand that if their child was accused of of something right and you know kids make mistakes they are learning opportunities um the parent wouldn't want the world to know you know all the details of that situation or exactly what discipline was imposed on their child so um you know the district is just trying to honor
014that for all students to try to do everything they can to protect their confidentiality uh a lot of this uh HIV law is based on the L the law against discrimination which is the New Jersey Law and I I think that's important to emphasize that this New Jersey Law is kind of defines what are some of the groups that are protected yeah it's a it's a really important Point New Jersey has one of the strongest anti-discrimination laws in the country um so in places of public accommodation of course which include Public Schools um we have to make sure that students are not discriminated against based on factors like race ethnicity gender religion dis ility sexual orientation gender identity so uh we have a very comprehensive law and some bullying obviously is going to meet the
015standard of also being discrimination under the law against discrimination so it's two separate laws you can have bullying that's not because of a protected class you know the student is perceived as being overweight for example or the student is targeted because they're new to the school but about half the bullying we see Statewide is because of a protected class so something that's also covered under the law against discrimination um and I think that's important to not particularly in this time frame in our country that I think it's something that uh we have to be aware of particularly that this is a New Jersey law that is yes so New Jersey has very specific law in place and you know a lot of things are happening at the federal level and there are um there's all
016sorts of Shifting Federal priorities when it comes to education policy and law in a variety of areas but education is primarily a state responsibility and we have you know very particular New Jersey laws on education and New Jersey specific laws when it comes to discrimination protection um and those are are clearly still in effect um one of the things that we do have to keep in mind is that you can have a a student who's targeted because of a characteristic and it could be what's called a bias related act um you know student is single out because of race ethnicity gender religion disability um that's also something that we have to report to local law enforcement and to a County prosecutor's office so it is important to recognize that sometimes school districts have an obligation
017to go beyond the Hib investigation and at least notify uh those other levels U because of an issue that you know law enforcement may choose to investigate to see if there are potential hate crimes uh that uh could be involved as well okay let's get into what the role of the board is that there's because they they get all the the reports from the administration so what what's the role of the Board of Education in all this yeah I have to say I I very much appreciate how hard that role is in feels like a prior life but I spent six years as a school board member um and I know how difficult it is trying to look at individual um student issues like this as a board member um so the board's role has
018many you know aspects to it the Board of Education of course adopts policy so every district has to have a policy that addresses how you deal with harassment intimidation and bullying um and there are related policies for anti-discrimination for example that boards have to adopt uh the board has to make sure that in approving the budget there are resources so that staff members are properly trained uh the Board needs to make sure that appropriate personnel are in place so every school has to have an anti-bullying specialist that leads the investigations and leads a school climate team you need an anti-bullying coordinator for the district so those things have to be in place um and the Board of Education also has to vote on every single um investigation uh a a report is produced by an
019anti-bullying specialist the results of that investigation are communicated by the superintendent to the Board of Ed and the board is ultimately asked to vote to affirm reject or modify the conclusion um in every one of those cases and as I mentioned sometimes a parent disagrees sometimes a parent asks for a hearing before the board and if they ask for it we have to give it within 10 days do they have to give a reason why they would vote no against the recommendation of the administration it's a great question right um if the board disagrees with the outcome and votes to overturn or modify that outcome that now is the U legal position of the school district on that issue and of course a parent on the other side might disagree with that conclusion and challenge
020it so you want to as a board be able to articulate what are the specific legal reasons that support a different conclusion than the one that was reached in the investigation uh because if there is a challenge down the road the district has to be prepared to defend the new conclusion they've reached one of the things that I I've heard from uh board members where they have difficulty on this and I think sometimes administrators do is the age of the student yes you know um there there's a couple thing ways I can go on this one but one of them is that they're seven years old yeah is they really intense so is age taken into account by the district it is and it's it's a really important um thing to consider um it's very
021difficult for a kindergarten or first grader to bully because one of the pieces that we think about is what would we expect a student to know and understand at that age and we expect students you know not to quite understand as much about the impact of their actions when they're six compared to when they're 16 so age is a relevant factor that goes into the analysis but we have seen confirmed bullying cases for very young kids so we do expect kids to understand some things when they're six or seven or eight years old and certainly if you take the time after there has been an incident to explain the harm and then the student continues the behavior uh we have seen a number of those cases where it was found to be bullying because you
022know student is told what you're doing is causing harm if they choose to keep doing it now there's an expectation that well there could be a consequence and what I've heard from some people's like they're maybe they're a little older they're 10 or 11 and and they're declared a bully does that go on their transcripts forever and they won't get into a college or something like that that's a huge concern it's probably the biggest concern that we hear from parents on this issue um so first colleges will never have a right to know about issues that happened you know K through 8 um kindergarten through 8th grade um and even at the high school level if colleges are asking for that information a parent has a a right to decide they're not going to share
023that information uh with a college so um even at the high school level the parent has control the question can't even be asked when it comes to issues prior to high school one of the things um that we've learned I think over the course of time is HIV connection to mental health yes in the school environment and uh I mean the me for everyone not just the the victim can you explain the connection that we've seen over the years yeah and it can be devastating um so you know one of the horrific things that we never want to deal with as a student thinking about um suicide thinking about uh that hor horrific decision um part of the research that we've seen uh I'll give you one example from the cyber bullying Research Center national
024uh research organization showed that if students are bullied in person and online the risk of that student thinking about suicide increases almost 800% wow compared to students who are not bullied at all so there's no absolute predictor there is no crystal ball that says you know when a student might engage in those thoughts but the risk skyrockets and I think part of it is when they're bullied both iners and online the student doesn't feel like they can escape it I mean I sort of learned a long time ago that the advice that well just don't look online doesn't work um it kind of goes against the the hard wiring of our brains um people want to look kids and adults so um when we have students who are bullied online we really do need to
025be proactive and checking in with those students um assessing their well-being if the student's struggling they might not choose to come forward and ask for help it's really on us as the adults to make sure that we're providing a safe supportive environment and letting that student know there are adults who care and that we do have you know we do have their back and we are going to be checking in on that so if if you're a school principal teacher what whatever in a school you probably should check in on some kids who've been bullied to see if there's anything going online and where's the school district's role I mean can they look at that in their decision making yeah I think it's very important for school districts to always keep in mind you know
026checking on the mental health of of students um and figuring out who the adults are who have the best connection to that student so you know for many students that person is a school counselor for some students it's a school administrator or a particular teacher for some students it's a coach who knows that student better than anybody else for some students it's somebody who works in the main office who just has developed a real Bond under connection with a certain student um so you don't have to be an expert on Mental Health to be the important adult connection for that student and you really want to think through for that child who is the person who knows them best who will notice if there's a change in their Baseline demeanor that's something you're looking for
027the student has always been outgoing and friendly now they're shutting down now they're quiet um or maybe now they're being aggressive where they never were before um so those changes is that you might not think are such a big deal it's really important to communicate that early on so the district can intervene it may not be it's counterintuitive but what about the person who's the bully they might have some mental health issues too do we do a followup with them it's it's equally important to think about all students involved in these issues the last thing you want to do is um forget about the student who engaged in The Bullying behavior in many cases that's its own cry for help and that student um could be somebody who is struggling with a whole range of
028issues um that are are leading that student to make this type of a choice um and you know one of the phrases that I often hear is that hurt people hurt people right so students who have experienced some sort of trauma or harm themselves often don't know how to process those issues and end up doing something harmful to another student uh so it's very important that we're checking in and that we're not de demonizing the student you're not a bully you're a student who engaged in bullying Behavior this doesn't Define who you are it's something that happened and it can be a teachable moment um going forward you touched on the cyber bullying a little bit uh you know when the law was first passed actually it goes back I think 2002 when we first
029had but our technology in our world is changing much fast and social media is not where it was even five or six years ago and we have ai yes how did districts deal with that because that could bring a different type of buling it can um you know artificial intelligence has all this incredible potential and it's being used already in amazing ways to support students and to broaden educational opportunities but of course any new technology can be used for good purposes and for purposes that are not so good so we have seen for example um deep fakes where uh some students who are you know pretty sophisticated with technology have figured out how to use artificial intelligence to create uh fake images of other students and to put them in demeaning or inappropriate uh videos
030and um and share them out to the world there was a horrific case where a group of boys in a high school in New Jersey used artificial intelligence to create fake sexually explicit images of female students and shared them and you could imagine how devastating that would be for the students involved so that's an example of something that you know is sexual harassment would be harassment intimidation or bullying but goes far beyond that and now we're talking about potential crimes under state and federal law and law enforcement really is signaling that they will treat those deep fake images that are created through AI as if they were authentic images and there is real potential for criminal prosecution in those cases that might be something that we should older students but we should be uh stressing
031to students that some of these things that they might think is not that serious has very serious consequences yes you know uh legally that's right and school districts do have an obligation to address digital citizenship it's part of the curriculum requirement that we have to address so for students even at very young ages we want to start talking about these issues responsible uses of Technology um and how easily we can cause harm students in their developing brains don't always fully impact understand the impact of what they're saying or doing and the harm that they could be causing to others so taking the time to help students develop empathy develop understanding about how harmful some of these things are you you do something in an instant with technology and it can be out there forever for
032the world to see okay uh any final thoughts you have on what particularly for a board member maybe what questions they should ask if they want to get to know what their program is like I think it's really important for board members to understand um how extensive this process is um and the significant uh level of training that um should be provided for staff members so you know one good set of questions for board members to ask are we training um all of our staff members to understand the signs of potential harassment intimidation and bullying um are we making sure that everybody understands the importance of school climate that doesn't get the attention it deserves the school climate piece because we're thinking about specific incidents and responding after the fact but to me the probably
033the most important role for a board is asking what can we do to help support a safe supportive climate uh for everybody in our schools and the better that climate is the less we have to respond to incidents on the back it's kind of being proactive and not being reactive to incidents and and trying to create that climate where those incidents may not occur or they're very rare yeah there's a landmark case that I think every board member should know about um LW versus Tom's River it was a really important um case from 2007 decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court it involved a student who had been singled out starting at the elementary level because of perceived sexual orientation and he was bullied by a large number of kids it continued into Middle School
034it continued into High School the district whenever they found out about an in ENT would impose discipline on the students who engaged in The Bullying behavior um but the behavior continued it escalated it became more physical in nature and ultimately the parent said I don't think you can keep my child safe um remove the child from the district sued the school district um and the New Jersey Supreme Court really raised the bar in this case what the court said was it's not enough to impose discipline after the fact if that's not working you need to step back and and look in a more comprehensive way at every aspect of your operations look at your school climate look at the training for staff look at the way you monitor um different areas in the school where
035things are more likely to happen things are much less likely to happen in a classroom than in a hallway or on a playground or at recess or on the bus when it's less structured so thinking through all of those issues proactively as opposed to just relying on punishment after the fact and I think you know getting boards to ask those questions what are we doing to be proactive on these issues is really critical it's a great point and it's probably being proactive not just on this any issue is right is probably a A good rule thumb yes so Dave I'd like to thank you for joining us uh I think anyone who particularly if you're a new board member you get a lot out of that basic idea about what HIV is and is not
036so that brings us to an end of this educ matters episode I hope you enjoyed it uh and I'll see you in our next episode