School Bullying/Harassment Policy

[NanaPoo]

Does your school have an official bullying/harassment policy that you have posted in your handbook or county website that you could share...especially if you are particularly happy with it?

My school does not. Nor do we have a self-injury policy. I'd like to propose both but come forward with several good samples of both. I won't share names of where I got them or what schools they came from but I'd just like some great samples to share with my admin...we are a private school who has the ability to create and write policy ourselves and I'd love to be a part of working on something that affects the kids I work with so much.

Thank you for any input you have!

I've missed you guys this semester! It has been a crazy, awful, nutty school year so far. My principal that I dearly loved who encouraged our entire staff & faculty everyday, loved our kids, and made me love this job so much was removed by the new church pastor (we are a school born of a church). He was replaced by an interim principal who had been here previously whom we'd had very negative experiences...micromanager, harsh, negative personality, etc. It's a very difficult transition and we're going through a great school start-up and fantastic high to a crashing low. Anyway, I hated to come here to the board with my crummy, depressed Eeyore attitude.

But, I'm sucking it up, counting the days til May and praying the replacement will be fantastic for next year. I appreciate the bullying policy info you guys can share.

[BeckyESRN]

I, too had a terrible interim principal last year, but by the end of the year we had hired an AWESOME new principal! Hang in there!

[NanaPoo]

Thank you, Becky. You don't know how those simple words just helped me! I am hanging by a thread here. Holding out hope that someone exists that was as fantastic as my previous principal..I literally felt like all hope walked out on me the day he left. I had to hide in my supply closet and cry. Then continued to cry for days (& still cry at home many nights.) Our faculty & staff had a meeting over the Labor Day weekend to check our attitudes before we returned the following week so we could make a plan to get through the remainder of the year. We also have a secret message board where we encourage one another as we go along and a secret pal type thing going where we sneak gifts & messages to each other. If nothing else, our old principal made us an incredibly strong family.

But thanks for letting me know this is survivable and that there may just be light at the end of the tunnel. If the next principal sucks the big one, though, I'm gone so fast their heads will spin. Because the misery of this job right now mixed with the insanely low pay along with being demeaned and ignored by my current principal is not the most motivating factor on the planet...

[BeckyESRN]

It's so hard to have the wrong person in charge. When our original principal was "offered another position" aka told to switch positions, we were all shaken. The teachers all said they've never seen anything handled the way this was. She literally told us on a Thursday that she would be starting a new position on Monday. There was 1 day of overlap with her and the interim principal. She was a positive force in this building and while, we didn't always think she handled everything the best way possible, she was well liked and genuinely wanted to improve everything for the staff and more importantly, the students. It was a very rough 6 months with the interim principal. He wanted to make all of these changes that didn't make any sense within the culture of our school. He had never worked primary, only HS, and he didn't understand that what works with 17 years olds, does NOT work with 7 year olds. Add to it the teacher's uncertainty with the status of the projects they had been involved in with our former principal and the stress of trying to adapt to someone new, everyone was a mess.

With all that being said, we all love our new principal. He is super supportive of the staff. More importantly, he values my input and trusts my judgement. I hope your school finds the right fit!