The Wareham Public School district is making progress on a Bullying Prevention Plan to comply with an anti-bullying law enacted by the state last May. The plan was submitted to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in December, and the district is now waiting for a response to determine if anything must be changed or added.

“The message to the students is that bullying is prohibited in Wareham Public Schools,” Robert Louzan, Director of Student Services for the district, told the School Committee during its Wednesday, February 9 meeting.

The eleven-page plan, developed by an advisory group which included school officials, School Committee members, and parents, covers the definition of bullying through the intervention and disciplinary process.

Bullying is different than typical conflict between students. It is repetitive and includes an “imbalance of power” between the bully and the victim, Louzan said. It causes physical or emotional harm to a victim or his property, places the victim in fear of harm or damage to his property, creates a hostile environment at school for the victim, and infringes on the rights of the victim at school or disrupts the education process for the victim, according to the proposed bullying prevention plan.

“Bullying today is different than it was two or three or four generations ago,” said Louzan.

Louzan explained that bullies are often popular students and victims may also be popular students, not necessarily “the biggest kid with the biggest grip,” like in previous years. He added that bullying is everywhere and not hidden, and that school officials must also be aware of “cyberbullying,” or bullying that occurs over the Internet, as well as over cell phones and text messaging.

A 25-person team of school officials will serve as bullying investigators within schools. The team has been trained to respond and investigate reports of bullying, Louzan said. Each school will include at least two investigators. Many are school counselors, Louzan said.

The training used to educate staff and students about bullying prevention is from the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC), located at Bridgewater State University. Some of the district's staff-members will be trained on March 1, and service personnel, such as bus drivers and cafeteria workers, will be trained in May.

Bullying prevention will be added to the kindergarten though grade 12 curriculum beginning next school year, Louzan said.

“We want to intervene before we have to investigate [bullying]. That's really what our goal is,” Louzan said. “The curriculum is really to get kids to step up, to be supportive. ... They are an extremely powerful force” in keeping bullying from happening.

School officials say that parents must be involved in the prevention process if the community is to see an end to bullying. An informational session for parents and the community will be held on February 15 at 7 p.m. in the Wareham Middle School auditorium.

“There was an awful lot of work that went into this [Bullying Prevention Plan], ... but I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that bullying is gone from life.” said Superintendent Dr. Barry Rabinovitch. “Parents need to parent children. ... People need to be kind to people. That has to happen, and we can't do it ourselves in the schools. It is a total community activity.”

For more information about the Bullying Prevention Plan, click here to visit the Wareham Public Schools website. To read about the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, visit www.MARCCenter.org.