School Cyber Bullying Law in California

I was reading the Sacramento Bee this morning and one of the front page articles was focused on one of the new laws passed in the California State Assembly. The law, which was entitled Bill 86, was proposed by Ted Lieu, D-El Segundo and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Sept. 30. So what is so important about this law? This law takes aim at stopping cyber bulling. Unfortunately it doesn't call for the end of social networking sites but it does however tell our children that we are aware of what is happening on the internet. The interesting part of the Sacramento Bee article was how it started. The article began, "It was bad enough when middle school students in Novato last year harassed and ridiculed 14-year-old Olivia when she suffered a seizure on campus.

But her torment only worsened when the girl went online and discovered a MySpace page full of taunts, slurs and threats directed at her. Her classmates had dubbed the page "Olivia Haters."

The case of the Novato teen would inspire a book, "Letters to a Bullied Girl: Messages of Healing and Hope." It would also stir a hand-wringing discussion over the emotional cruelty of school bullying and the power of the Internet to make it even more severe." According to dailybullentin.com, "The law gives school administrators the leverage to suspend or expel students for bullying other students by means of an electronic device such as a mobile phone or on an Internet social networking site like MySpace or Facebook; the law, however, only applies to bullying that occurs during school hours or during a school-related activity." One of the main influences for the bill being made into law was the case of Megan Meier in Missouri (Megan's case was the subject of another blog that I had written). I found some suggestions for parents if they believe that their child is being cyberbullied on the insidebayarea.com website,
SUGGESTIONS FOR PARENTS WHEN DEALING WITH BULLYING:

# Stay calm. Plan out what you are going to say to your child's teacher and school administrators. Stay sensitive to your child's feelings and concerns.
# Report the bullying incident as thoroughly and accurately as possible. Listen to your child with an open heart and mind, and let them know they have done the right thing in coming to you with the problem.
# Document everything! Pretend you are a lawyer and put everything in writing. Tape record statements, type them up and have witnesses sign them. Take pictures of injuries and date them accordingly.
# If your child is being bullied online, print hard copies of all the messages. Save all e-mails and instant messages. Build a file.

The interesting part of the Sacramento Bee article was how it caught your eye. The article began, "It was bad enough when middle school students in Novato last year harassed and ridiculed 14-year-old Olivia when she suffered a seizure on campus. But her torment only worsened when the girl went online and discovered a MySpace page full of taunts, slurs and threats directed at her. Her classmates had dubbed the page "Olivia Haters." The case of the Novato teen would inspire a book, "Letters to a Bullied Girl: Messages of Healing and Hope." It would also stir a hand-wringing discussion over the emotional cruelty of school bullying and the power of the Internet to make it even more severe."

Hopefully we can all move forward to stop cyber bullying and stop any dependence on social networking sites.