School Bullying Legal Entanglement Plan: Prevention Guide

Introduction and Plan Overview

This Legal Entanglement Plan examines the policies, programs, strategies, and practices of a particular school with respect to their moral, legal, and ethical implications. The plan is developed through a three-step process that addresses issues that could potentially become a liability or legal entanglement if left unaddressed. Because the plan will be communicated to appropriate stakeholders, it provides a structured path for resolving those issues before they escalate.

Step 1: Analysis of Moral, Legal, and Ethical Issues

Moral and Legal Issues in School Strategies

One of the moral, ethical, and legal issues facing Carson Elementary School in West Price — one that could escalate into a legal entanglement — is school bullying, which poses significant threats to the welfare and well-being of students. Bullying is a broad concept that involves intentional aggression, a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim, and repetitive aggressive behavior (Cornell & Limber, 2015). Carson Elementary School recognizes that preventing bullying is critical to enhancing the safety of all students within the classroom and school environment. In this regard, the school has established policies that seek to prevent or lessen bullying incidents. These policies are based on guidelines issued by the Cincinnati Public Schools district and serve as the basis for determining how to handle bullying incidents.

As part of the school's strategies toward meeting this moral and legal obligation, the administration and teaching staff focus on encouraging positive behaviors among students. Moreover, the school has established strategies for dealing with problematic behavior, including suspension or expulsion of students considered to pose threats to the health and well-being of others. Teachers and other staff receive intensive training on preventing and lessening bullying (Lake, 2018). While these strategies have been relatively effective in promoting student safety, they could be problematic morally or legally on the grounds that some are primarily reactive rather than proactive. For example, the measures for dealing with problematic behavior at Carson Elementary School appear focused on the impact of such behaviors rather than on preventing them from occurring. Therefore, the school could experience legal and moral problems if such behaviors ultimately harm a student. The Legal Entanglement Plan in the final section of this paper seeks to provide a proactive approach toward preventing problematic behavior in order to avoid any potential legal ramifications relating to school bullying.

Values in School Policies, Programs, and Practices

Carson Elementary School has undertaken suitable measures toward preventing and addressing bullying based on policies established by the Cincinnati Public Schools district. However, there is a lack of accountability in how the administration and teaching staff are held responsible for preventing bullying incidents and promoting the safety of all students. The strategies also lack the transparency through which parents can work collaboratively with the school to prevent such incidents. Additionally, there is insufficient transparency regarding how the school's bullying policies are implemented and what measures teachers and other staff take to ensure that all students are safe within and outside the classroom environment.

The school's teaching staff has embraced a values education approach as a means of promoting safety and positive behaviors among students. During this process, students are taught moral and social principles intended to enhance morality and positive action. However, there is a lack of acceptance and respect among students because of insufficient transparency and accountability in enforcing these moral and social principles. The school's administration and teaching staff have also failed to promote collaboration with parents in enforcing these principles and preventing bullying. The Legal Entanglement Plan will help address this by providing guidelines for collaboration among parents, teachers, and the school administration.

Collaboration in Addressing School Bullying

From the above analysis, parents and caregivers need to work together with teachers and the school administration to promote the safety of all students. Collaboration among these different stakeholders is vital to ensuring that students adhere to the moral and social principles that model positive behaviors both in the school setting and at home. Parents and caregivers will help reinforce these positive behaviors and principles while also addressing problematic behaviors. Collaboration is also crucial for promoting transparency and accountability in the implementation of bullying policies.

Following engagement with parents and caregivers in the school, these stakeholders highlighted the need to promote collaboration with teachers and the school administration as a means of ensuring transparency and accountability. They reported that some student safety issues in the school arise because of a lack of clarity regarding the policies the school has adopted to prevent and lessen safety concerns. Therefore, collaboration will help them understand and play a leading role in enforcing positive behaviors. Parents and teachers influenced the topic for the Legal Entanglement Plan by providing feedback and opinions regarding the measures the school employs in promoting student safety. In light of that feedback, the topic for the Legal Entanglement Plan is "Collaboration between Different Stakeholders in Preventing Bullying at Carson Elementary School."

Step 2: Knowledge Base — Case Law and Literature Review

Case Law Review

School bullying has been the subject of numerous court cases across various jurisdictions in the United States. These cases have significantly affected school policies, including accountability for enforcement of practices that enhance the safety of all students. One case that applies to how bullying is handled fairly, consistently, and ethically is Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999). In this case, Aurelia Davis sued the county's Board of Education on behalf of her fifth-grade daughter, LaShonda, who was allegedly a victim of sexual harassment by another student. The plaintiff argued that school officials failed to prevent her daughter from suffering sexual harassment — an example of school bullying. Davis further contended that school officials were complacent in creating a safe learning environment and therefore deprived her daughter of educational benefits granted by law (Legal Information Institute, 2018). The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Davis, finding that the school was guilty of deliberate indifference to LaShonda's sexual harassment and had ignored several complaints. This case highlights how schools are held accountable for preventing and addressing bullying and other student safety issues.

In Flores v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, 324 F.3d 1130 (9th Cir. 2003), six LGBT students filed a lawsuit against the school district alleging they had experienced anti-gay harassment over a period of seven years. While these students reported incidents of anti-gay name-calling, rumor-spreading, physical assaults, and vandalism, employees of the school district repeatedly ignored their reports. Some employees even participated in the anti-gay abuse. The school district was found guilty of promoting harassment on the basis of sexual orientation, was fined $1 million, and was required to provide injunctive relief — including the establishment of a comprehensive training program for school administrators, staff, and students. The ruling highlights the need for concerted efforts among different stakeholders in addressing bullying. In light of this ruling, Carson Elementary School could benefit from establishing a collaborative framework that actively involves parents in the effort to combat bullying.

Another case emphasizing the significance of collaboration in preventing and handling bullying is Ketchum v. Newport-Mesa Unified School District (Orange County Super. Ct. 2009). In this case, student athletes filed a lawsuit alleging they had been subjected to anti-gay and anti-female cyberbullying as well as verbal threats, while the school and its administrators failed to respond. They argued that the school promoted a hostile learning environment for female, lesbian, and gay students by failing to act on multiple reports of harassment. The school was found guilty and required to provide a written apology to the students and establish mandatory training for administrators, students, and teachers on homophobia and sexism. As in Flores, this case demonstrates that addressing bullying in schools requires collaboration among all stakeholders.

In Shaposhnikov v. Pacifica School District (2006), the plaintiff — a competitive dancer — had been subjected to physical harassment and anti-gay slurs for two years while in middle school. He filed a lawsuit against the school district and the parents of the students who bullied him (Public Justice, 2016). Both the school district and the parents were found liable and agreed to a financial settlement. The case demonstrates that parents share responsibility for preventing and lessening bullying in schools. However, for parents to fulfill this role effectively, it requires transparency, accountability, and collaboration from teachers and other school staff — as advocated in this Legal Entanglement Plan.

Literature Review

Cornell and Limber (2015) state that bullying in schools is a national epidemic that has contributed to the development of various nationwide initiatives to lessen this problematic behavior among students. These efforts are adopted on the premise that lessening bullying in schools is part of a broader civil and human rights movement. Recent court cases on student bullying have provided regulatory guidelines through which schools establish anti-bullying policies and strategies. Based on recent Supreme Court decisions, one emerging trend likely to affect Carson Elementary School is the requirement to demonstrate accountability in preventing bullying and harassment incidents. Schools are expected to take proactive actions toward preventing harassment and bullying, which entails establishing policies that specify student actions constituting bullying or harassment.

Hormann (2017) states that school officials and teaching staff are required to establish safe learning environments for all students, free from bullying and harassment. This requirement has grown increasingly significant in the modern school setting because of rising cases of bullying and bullying-related suicide. School administrators and teachers are expected to assume a leading role in preventing and handling bullying, because failure to do so — and being deliberately indifferent — creates a hostile school environment. However, schools face tremendous challenges in maintaining flexibility when determining appropriate prevention strategies, particularly when dealing with children who are still learning how to relate to one another appropriately. School administrators have been left to second-guess the most appropriate bullying prevention measures, particularly in elementary and middle schools, despite the standards established by existing regulations and Supreme Court rulings. Carson Elementary School is likely to face similar challenges in determining the most appropriate prevention strategy, a difficulty compounded by the need to ensure that policies and practices are built on collaboration among different stakeholders.

According to Brown (2014), preventing and handling bullying in schools requires values education, since a values-based strategy is regarded as a suitable approach toward promoting positive behavior among students. Bullying is regarded as an indicator of negative behavior and the existence of a hostile school environment that endangers student safety. A values-based approach therefore addresses the root causes of bullying and would help in creating a collaborative framework to achieve lasting change. While this approach could benefit Carson Elementary School, enforcing moral and social principles is a relatively complex process. Adopting such an approach would require changes in the school's instructional strategies and the overall nature of the learning environment.

Lewis (2016) states that preventing and handling bullying in schools requires compliance with policies for standards of care and supervision established by the school district. These policies provide guidelines for school administrators and teachers to prepare for problems, keep documented records, enhance student supervision, educate the various stakeholders, and report cases to relevant authorities. These components form part of a comprehensive plan for promoting positive behaviors while lessening the likelihood of bullying and harassment. For Carson Elementary School, implementing these processes would require adhering to the standards established by the Cincinnati Public Schools district. However, complying with these policies and guidelines can be complex and characterized by numerous difficulties — challenges that are largely attributable to the need to involve multiple stakeholders in devising and enforcing bullying policies.