Supporting Anti-Bullying Legislation in Washington

Supporting Anti-Bullying Legislation in Washington

Washington’s state legislation brings awareness to bullying, harassment, and intimidation with the goal of creating an inclusive environment for all students free of bullying or discrimination.

Students are using technology more now than ever before for online learning and socializing, which is why it’s vital that schools ensure students are safe online. Protecting students from online dangers has always been important, but with more schools using technology for learning, students are more accessible to risks online. Washington has state legislature in place to aim at preventing bullying, harassment, and intimidation in schools and districts.

What is bullying?

Washington’s state legislation, Rev. Code Wash. (ARCW) § 28A.300.285 (2013), defines bullying as, “Harassment, intimidation, or bullying means any intentionally written message or image—including those that are electronically transmitted—verbal, or physical act, including but not limited to one shown to be motivated by race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, including gender expression or identity, mental or physical disability or other distinguishing characteristics, when an act

Physically harms a student or damages the student’s property.
Is so severe, persistent or pervasive that it creates an intimidating or threatening educational environment.

Has the effect of substantially interfering with a student’s education.
Has the effect of substantially disrupting the orderly operation of the school.

What does this legislation require schools to do?

Washington school districts must adopt a policy and procedure to aid in the prevention of harassment, intimidation, and bullying. School district policies and procedures must contain key policy and procedural elements that are contained in the state model policy and procedure, including, but not limited to:

Statements prohibiting harassment, intimidation, and bullying and statements of scope indicating where and when the policy applies.
Definitions of prohibited behavior.
Strategies to prevent harassment, intimidation, and bullying, including policy dissemination, education, staff training, and implementation of individual, classroom, school, and district-level prevention approaches.
Designation of a compliance officer who serves as the primary contact for harassment, intimidation, and bullying.
Requirements for immediate staff intervention.
Procedures for reporting and investigations.
Disciplinary consequences and corrective actions for a student who commits an act of harassment, intimidation, or bullying.
Supports for the targeted student.
Lists of other resources and related policies and procedures.

In addition, these anti-bullying laws require districts to provide the superintendent of public instruction with a brief summary of policies, procedures, programs, partnerships, vendors, and instructional and training materials and must provide a link to the school district’s website for further information.

Washington encourages school districts to implement bullying prevention programs to provide students with strategies aimed at preventing harassment, intimidation, and bullying and must seek partnerships with families, law enforcement, and other community agencies in efforts to train students.

Education solutions that support this law

Find out how our education solutions support this law, helping to create a safer online environment for all students.

NetSupport School – In-school classroom management

For over 32 years, NetSupport School is the market-leading multi-platform Classroom Management software solution for schools, supporting teachers with a wealth of assessment, monitoring, collaboration and eSafety features – to support effective learning in a safe environment.

Authorized/restricted website and application lists can ensure students are focused and help minimize student distraction and access to inappropriate content.
Monitor students’ current Internet use by viewing real-time thumbnails of their PCs to ensure they are on task – plus, teachers can create a record of Internet history use to be printed or saved for later reference.
Real-time keyboard monitoring provides a simple view of each active student and their current keyboard input – a crucial aspect in detecting e-safety issues and can be used to identify inappropriate behavior.
Teachers can show their screen or a student’s screen to demonstrate positive digital interactions while promoting appropriate technology use, helping to create good digital citizens.
Student feedback mode allows teachers to gauge students’ wellbeing and get insight into whether they need extra support.
The Technician Console allows schools to apply ‘always on’ internet, application, printing policies and more.

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classroom.cloud - Online teaching and learning

classroom.cloud provides a range of features to help teachers manage and control online class behavior (helping to keep students focused and safe), plus a set of simple yet effective teaching tools to support engaging and meaningful learning – whether it’s taking place in school or remotely at home.

Teachers can show their screen to demonstrate positive digital interactions while promoting appropriate technology use, helping to create good digital citizens.
Monitor students’ screens to see what they’re typing and who they’re collaborating with in real time to ensure they’re on task and remain focused on the lesson.
‘Allowed’ and ‘restricted’ website/application lists help teachers provide a safe learning environment by ensuring students can only access relevant websites and are shielded from unsuitable content during lesson time.
Keyword monitoring (powered by over 14,000 phrases covering a range of eSafety topics) helps to provide insight into trending issues – plus, schools and districts can also add their own keywords.
Word cloud of trending topics helps teachers to quickly spot trends and identify potential risks – with detailed reporting to further protect students.
Identify and support vulnerable students with the contextual intelligence Risk Index. This assesses the context and history of a student’s current activities (the device used, time of day, websites visited, and applications used) and considers them alongside any previous alerts they may have triggered.
Keeping track of events is super easy, as all new events are flagged as being ‘new’ and progress can be marked to ensure all supporting staff are aware.
Choose your monitoring settings to reduce false alarms by excluding certain applications and websites (including Microsoft Teams) from being monitored to focus on more high-risk areas.
Keeping things super secure is a breeze with two levels of staff access to ensure only authorized users have access and control over online safety settings.
Set monitoring hours to specify when students are being monitored, for example, only during school hours, at all times when using their school devices, or only on the school network.

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NetSupport DNA – IT Management with school-wide eSafety

In addition to providing IT Management tools, NetSupport DNA also includes a built-in internet safety toolkit as standard to help enhance schools’ internet safety policies. It provides the tools needed to identify students at risk, prevent them being exposed to inappropriate online content, encourage greater digital citizenship, and fulfil a school’s internet safety duties – all in line with ISTE guidance.

Keyword and phrase monitoring tool allows schools to quickly gain insights into what students are typing, searching for, or copying online – and it’s available in multiple language packs.
Innovative word cloud helps to easily highlight trending topics across the school – while appropriate staff are alerted through email, real-time pop-ups or summary reports, prompting them to review the triggered event.
Contextual intelligence-based Risk Index automatically flags high-risk events and vulnerable students, creating a risk index number for each event, based on sophisticated contextual intelligence risk analysis.
‘History of Concerns’ is available to help identify students that were flagged as vulnerable or at-risk, ensuring they have extra support.
Report a concern allows students to reach out for support in confidence to a teacher they trust, and teachers can also add any concerns they have about a student.
Age-appropriate Internet monitoring tools ensure students are using the Internet properly with age-appropriate profiles – creating a safer Internet with parameters to allow students the flexibility to learn about the online world in safety.
Apps and games can also be blocked or restricted to help schools add an extra layer of security and keep students on task. The application metering reports reveal application use, helping to ensure usage complies with school policy.