FOLEY MIDDLE SCHOOL'S ANTI-BULLYING POLICY

The Baldwin County School System believes that all students have a right to a safe and   healthy school environment.  The system, schools, and community have an obligation to promote mutual respect, tolerance, and acceptance.  Foley Middle School will not tolerate behavior that infringes on the safety of any student.

What is school bullying?

School bullying is when one or more students repeatedly act towards another less powerful student in a way which is intended to hurt, intimidate, or diminish that other student.  Bullying is seen by many researchers as referring to a cluster of different behaviors, unified by the theme of aggression.  Theses behaviors are generally categorized as follows.

•      Relational bullying is sometimes referred to as "social" or "psychological" bullying.  This takes the form of disrupting another student's peer relationships through gossiping, whispering and spreading rumors.  It also includes turning your back on them, giving them the silent treatment, leaving them out.

•      Cyber-bullying in contrast to face to face bullying, social bullying is often indirect; students communicate negative representations of the target to third parties, often through cyber-bullying such as instant messaging, chat rooms, postings on web pages or blogs.

•      Verbal bullying such as threatening, taunting, intimidating, insulting, sarcasm, teasing, ridiculing, making faces, rolling eyes and other gestures.

•      Physical bullying, both to the person (such as hitting, pushing, shoving, kicking, pinching, holding down) and to their possessions (through extorting money, stealing or causing their possessions damage).

•      Sexual bullying,  Sexual bullying is often referred to as sexual harassment, which includes unwanted sexual attention and comments, gender-demeaning remarks and jokes, using sexually offensive names, circulating pornography, touching the private parts of another student's body, molestation, assault, and rape

  Reporting Procedures:

•Ø      Tell a teacher or another adult at school

•Ø      Witness Statements may be completed by other students

•Ø      A counselor or administrator will review and investigate the report from the student and/or reporting adult to verify illegal acts. Student reports that are found to have been intentionally filed under false pretenses or in retaliation will be subject to disciplinary action.

Disciplinary Action: 

•Ø      Student offenders will be disciplined in a progressive manner including warnings, detention, Saturday school, suspension, and recommendation for expulsion.

•Ø      Interventions to correct inappropriate behaviors may include but are not limited to counseling, violence prevention intervention meetings.