Iowa's anti-bullying law for schools is older than most social media platforms where bullying is happening - KCRG
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) -The pandemic may have highlighted a shift in bullying in schools. Reports of bullying in Iowa schools fell 42% last school year. Our i9 investigative team looked at why, and whether Iowa’s laws can keep up.
For 14 years the state has required schools to report incidents of bullying. During the 2018-2019 school year, there were 1270 cases reported statewide. That number dropped to 740 last school year during the pandemic, but those we spoke with say most bullying now is happening online and could be going undetected.
Since the state established it’s law, social media has grown immensely. Instagram launched in 2010, Snapchat came around in 2011 and TikTok came about in 2016.
“It’s literally all based around like social media, Instagram spam accounts, Snapchat private stories,” Ali Hoffert said, a recent high school graduate from Northeast Iowa. She said her younger sister is a victim of bullying.
”It’s hard to sit back and watch because I can’t really do anything about it,” Hoffert explained.
She said when bullying happens online it can continue after school hours.
Rachel Young, an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa has done research on cyber bullying.
”We have done some interviewing with school administrators and it is really challenging for them and I mean it’s challenging for parents as well because even you know, it’s really hard to know what adolescents are doing all the time online,” Young explained.
While technology can enhance bullying, it is also being used to try and stop it.
Joseph E. Brown Senior, the Interim Superintendent at Clear Creek Amana, told us the district uses a software to monitor what students are doing online while at school.
”It looks at what websites students are looking at, what Google docs they’re creating, what their email is like, what their searches are and if there’s anything that’s inappropriate it flags it,” Brown said.
Clear Creek Amana also has what they call the Clipper Tip Line, where people can anonymously report concerns on their website.
“It can happen very quickly and it can happen any place. So not the just 15% of the time students are in the school but the 85% of the time that their home,” Brown explained.
It’s a digital world that makes it hard for schools to truly stop bullying, despite laws in place to try and do so.
“Knowing where, you know what the role of school administrators is and how they can intervene and how they can really do it effectively, those are all really challenging questions,” Young said.
Next week the state legislature will be back in session. Our i9 investigative team reached out to lawmakers to see what they have to say about the state’s bullying law, and whether it should be updated. We’ll have that story Tuesday night.
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source: https://www.kcrg.com/2022/01/04/iowas-anti-bullying-law-schools-is-older-than-most-social-media-platforms-where-bullying-is-happening/
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