More than 300 bullying cases reported at Cape public schools

Although reports of bullying and ways of categorizing it can vary from district to district and building to building, area school systems continue to find ways to crack down on the fear and exclusion it can wreak in students’ lives.

For the school year just ended, 305 cases of alleged bullying were reported through the anonymous Stop Bullying website the Cape Girardeau district began offering in 2015, said superintendent Jim Welker.

The site may be found at stopbullying.capetigers.com. It also is available in the form of an app students can access on their 1:1 computer devices.

Of all the schools in the district, the junior high had the largest number of reported incidents at 111; the high school had 102, and the middle school had 61.

Welker attributed the higher numbers to schools with larger student bodies; the junior high has about 600 students and the high school has 1,100. Plus, the dynamics in these schools differ from the lower grades.

“I think sometimes with the transition between classes, you have more opportunities for things to happen,” Welker said.

He did not have a number for bullying incidents reported in other ways or that ended up in disciplinary referrals throughout the district.

Since each case reported through the Stop Bullying site is unique, it must be investigated and addressed individually. At this point, there is no way to track how many of the reports ended in discipline and how many were resolved without it, Welker said.

“These are just our local numbers, the ones that were reported through our bullying website,” he said. “This will not necessarily be reported as a disciplinary action.”

The online reporting system, created by Central Junior High School counselors Ed Draper and Julie Janzow, became available in the fall of 2015 before going districtwide in February.

It was meant to give students a way to report bullying without being seen approaching counselors. In addition, they can call (573) 519-0696.

Whether students report incidents in person or without identifying themselves, Welker said the key is to ensure they can learn without feeling afraid.

“We do take this very seriously, and we want our students to feel safe,” he said, citing the efforts the district has made to reach out to students and parents on the subject of bullying.

In the nearby Jackson School District, which is a little larger than Cape Girardeau’s, officials began offering a similar Stand Up and Speak Out website last fall.

Assistant superintendent Beth Emmendorfer said 40 reports were made through the online reporting system in 2015-2016 — 30 at the secondary level and 10 at the elementary level.

Districtwide, similar complaints that resulted in disciplinary actions numbered four last year and five the year before. They were coded as harassment because bullying is not a specific category.

Bullying, as defined in the Jackson district, is considered to be several actions against a student or group of students, and harassment usually falls under one instance of meanness, said Jackson Junior High School counselor Sarah Pylate.

“The biggest distinction we make is between bullying and mean behavior,” she said.

Bullying is an offense that recurs over time and creates an imbalance of power between the targeter and the targeted. Harrassment, on the other hand, “is a one-time thing that still needs to be addressed.”

As in the Cape Girardeau district, the first step when an incident is reported is to do fact-finding by getting each party’s side of the story.

Once the reasons for bullying or harassment are established, a plan is developed that might include some form of detention or suspension, depending on the severity of the offense and the reasons behind it. Occasionally, mediation can be used.

In some cases, two friends might become angry with each other, or one person or group could be acting out against others because things are going wrong at home. The reasons can be as unique as the students themselves.

“I would say that dealing with bullying is one of the hardest parts of being a school counselor, because there are so many aspects (to a situation),” Pylate said.

In Scott City, superintendent Brian Lee said bullying is as tricky there because it can mean different things to different people and can be difficult to categorize.

In his district, however, bullying is considered intimidation or exclusion.

“Every time a kid annoys another kid, it’s not just bullying,” he said, and each building principal has ways of dealing with the issue.

Luckily, it isn’t a big one in the district.

Last year, of the 835 students districtwide, there were only 16 disciplinary issues related to bullying.

The first step in each of those cases was to meet with the students involved and find out what led to the conflict, then mete out consequences based on the situation.

“Each one is not the same,” he said.

No one from Perry County’s District 32 was available to comment.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652