Garden State Equality wrote the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights with state legislators. It’s the toughest anti-bullying law in the country, but for it to succeed, we mustmake sure that public schools and school districts enforce it. That’s where you can be of tremendous help. You can be our eyes and ears in your school district and help us monitor compliance with the law – and you don’t have to be a parent with kids in school or even a student yourself.
Below are 10 questions for you to answer and email us about the public schools in your school district. You can tell us about as many public schools in your school district as you’d like.
If you are a parent or guardian of a student in a New Jersey public school – or if you yourself are a student in a New Jersey public school – it will be easy to answer all 10 questions below. If you fall in none of those categories, you’ll still be able to answer at least a couple of the questions below about your local K to 12 public schools.
Remember, the new anti-bullying law protects all students in New Jersey public schools bullied for whatever reason – including, but not only, LGBT students.
The law does not apply to private schools in New Jersey other than encouraging them to comply with the law, versus requiring compliance for public schools. If you are familiar with a particular private school in New Jersey, we would still like to hear from you as to how that school is doing regarding the questions below.
If you would like to read more about the anti-bullying law, visit our school bullying webpage.
If you’d like to report an incident of school bullying, you don’t have to email us the answers to the questions below. Please contact Garden State Equality’s Anti-Bullying Hotline right away by calling 1 (877) NJBULLY or texting NJBULLY to 66746.
Please help us distribute this survey widely. The link to this webpage is http://www.gardenstateequality.org/speak/stopbullying, and we ask that you forward it to your friends, family and colleagues anywhere in New Jersey, as well as to your list servs. Or you may cut and paste this entire page, and send it to them in the body of an email.
Please email as many answers to the questions below as possible to Schools@GardenStateEquality.org and put SCHOOL BULLYING in the subject header.
- Your name, your phone number, your hometown, the name of the school(s) you are emailing us about, and the grades the school(s) cover. We will keep your identity in the strictest confidence unless you email us otherwise.
- If you are a student, what is your age and grade? If you are parent, what are the ages and grades of any children you have in the local public schools? We will keep your identity/their identity in the strictest confidence unless you email us otherwise.
- As required by the new law, does the website of your school, your child’s school or local schools have a PROMINENT LINK ON THE HOME PAGE to the school’s anti-bullying policy?
- As required by the new law, does the website of your school, your child’s school or local schools have a PROMINENT LINK ON THE HOME PAGE to your school’s anti-bullying specialist, with his or her contact information?
- Have you been made aware in any way of your school’s anti-bullying policy? If so, how?
- Have you been made aware in any way of who your school’s anti-bullying specialist is? If so, how?
- As required by the new law, did your school, your child’s school or local schools do teaching or programming on bullying during the first week of October 2011? The new law mandates that the first week of each October be a Week of Respect with special teaching or programming or counter bullying, in addition to such teaching or programming all school year round.
- Since the start of the school year in September 2011, have you or any of your children in the local public schools been bullied? If so, how? How did the school handle it?
- Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about how your school or local schools are handling bullying?
- If you are dissatisfied with the way your school or local schools are handling bullying, would you be willing to meet with us and/or others in your area to improve how your school is doing?
Please email the answers to the applicable questions above to Schools@GardenStateEquality.org and put SCHOOL BULLYING in the subject header. With your help, Garden State Equality can make sure every public school in New Jersey enforces the law – and that all our children are safe and accorded the respect they deserve.
Again, if you’d like to report an incident of school bullying, please contact Garden State Equality’s Anti-Bullying Hotline right away by calling 1 (877) NJBULLY or texting NJBULLY to 66746.
Thank you so much from all of us at Garden State Equality. Let’s save students’ lives together.
