Recognizing that bullying and fear disrupt student learning, California state law requires districts, county offices of education and charter schools to adopt procedures for preventing acts of bullying, including cyberbullying, by Dec. 31, 2019.

Additionally, state law mandates that boards adopt a policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment, intimidation and bullying based on disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race, ethnicity, immigration status, religion and sexual orientation, or association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.

Bullying negatively affects school climate and therefore hurts all students’ educational experiences. The American Psychological Association has found that students who are victims of bullying experience higher rates of school avoidance and dropping out, lower academic achievement, increased emotional challenges and higher likelihood of suicide attempts. The 2015–17 California Healthy Kids Survey indicated that 34 percent of seventh-grade students, 31 percent of ninth-grade students and 28 percent of 11th-grade students reported being harassed or bullied on school property. Other studies have shown that about 20 percent of students across these surveyed grade levels report experiencing cyberbullying.

Therefore, county offices, districts and school sites should stay vigilant of bullying behaviors and take preventative measures to minimize their occurrence, keeping in mind that bullying can appear in various forms, including physical, verbal, social/relational and cyberbullying.

A critical component of a district’s procedures should be staff professional development in the identification of bullying and strategies to address it. Districts are required to make the California Department of Education’s online training module on the dynamics of bullying and cyberbullying available annually to all certificated staff and to other employees who have regular interaction with students. Districts are also required to provide staff training to raise awareness of the legal obligation of the district to prevent the bullying of students. It is also important to teach students the negative impact of bullying, the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, how to advocate for themselves, how to help another student who is being bullied and when to seek assistance from a trusted adult.