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MA passed its anti-bullying law

April 30, 2010 By Anne Leave a Comment

The Massachusetts state legislature unanimously yesterday passed a new law “cracking down on bullying,” the Boston Globe reports. “The bill gained momentum after the deaths of the 15-year-old [Phoebe] Prince [of South Hadley] and 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, who allegedly committed suicide after being bullied.” The bill now goes to Gov. Deval Patrick for signing; a spokesperson said he considers “passage of strong anti-bullying legislation ‘a top priority’.” Here’s my earlier post with more details.

Meanwhile, students aren’t the only people who bully. Most schools (if not states) have anti-bullying policies aimed at students, but school districts in Iowa and California are now “developing rules to prevent teachers from bullying teachers,” USATODAY reports. This makes huge sense because actions do speak louder than words, and policies against student bullying lose credibility when students see adults disregarding the very policies they’re supposed to enforce. I just hope this trend includes policies against teachers bullying students too! “Nationwide, 41 states have anti-bullying laws affecting schools,” USATODAY cites Department of Health and Human Services figures as showing. “A few states, such as North Carolina, Florida, and Utah, include school employees with students in their measures.” [See also “Cyberbullying & the darkside of flash mobs.”]

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Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, Law & Policy, Risk & Safety, School & Tech, school policy, Social Media Tagged With: bullying, cyberbullying, Massachusetts, school policy, state laws

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Anne Collier


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2016 TEDx Talk on
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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