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Legislative News and Views - Rep. Tim Kelly (R)

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ANTI-BULLYING BILL IN THE NEWS AT STATE CAPITOL

Friday, March 14, 2014

Should the State of Minnesota address potential bullying problems in our schools, or are those decisions best left in the hands of local school districts?

Current state law requires schools to develop and implement their own anti-bullying policies. However some in the legislative majority are trying to trump these programs with a set of statewide guidelines.

To review, last session the Minnesota House approved anti-bullying legislation that in my opinion went too far. This one-size-fits-all proposal forced school districts to use new training materials, required annual collection, reporting and analysis of all incidents and responses, and required ongoing professional development for all staff and volunteers so they could identify and interfere when bullying situation took place.

What the legislation did not include was a way for school districts to pay for this increased responsibility. The estimated cost was between $20 and $25 million to schools statewide, money that could be used in the classroom.

Now the Senate is debating its own anti-bullying bill, and the proposal was recently approved by a Senate education committee. To his credit, the chief author of that body’s legislation has changed it significantly in hopes of winning support from top education groups.

The Senate version is not nearly as costly as the House proposal, and amendments were also implemented in an attempt to ease fears that schools and teachers would not be able to address bullying on their own terms. It also relaxes the training and reporting requirements. Even with these changes, some, including the Minnesota School Boards Association, remain opposed due to excessive cost concerns.

If the full Senate approves anti-bullying legislation, and I expect it will, it’s going to be interesting to see how the House and Senate resolve their differences. Will all staff and volunteers be required to take anti-bullying training – at the school’s expense? Will the reporting requirements for school districts be overly rigorous? How much money will local schools ultimately spend in order to meet the requirements of a new state program?

Everyone can agree that our children should not be bullied, and that our schools must have a policy in order to discourage and deal with this unwanted behavior. To what level the State of Minnesota will permanently get involved in this discussion should be answered in the coming weeks.