The Massachusetts anti-bullying legislation has been recognized as the most comprehensive bullying prevention law in the country but there is no mechanism in place to track the number of bullying cases.
View full size02.17.2011 | SPRINGFIELD - Hampden County District Attorney Mark Mastroianni, left, addresses Attorney General Martha Coakley during a hearing on the anti-bullying legislation passed in May 2010.The Massachusetts anti-bullying legislation that has been hailed as the most comprehensive bullying bill in the country, has no tracking system to measure its effectiveness and the state has no plans to track reported cases of bullying.
“There are no reported cases of bullying and there never will be,” said David Traub, director of communications for the Norfolk District Attorney’s office. “The anti-bullying legislation did not criminalize bullying.”
The anti-bullying legislation that was signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in May 2010, just over a year ago, has been hailed as the most in-depth anti-bullying legislation in the country. Yet, there appears to be no way to track its effectiveness.
“It’s only half without a follow-up report,” said Eileen Moore, Phoebe Prince’s aunt. “I’m surprised, I’m shocked.”
The anti-bullying legislation was enacted after the deaths of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, of South Hadley, and 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover, of Springfield. Both committed suicide after allegedly being bullied repeatedly by peers in their schools.
“It’s important to have a tracking system to know that the schools are doing a good job and not just handing it over to the courts,” Moore said. “I hope the focus does stay and people will realize this is not acceptable behavior.”
In recent months, Moore created a group called Phoebe’s Messengers to help spread the word of the dangers of bullying and to give schools a “best practices” guide.
“Kids need to know the boundaries, that is really what the law is trying to do,” she said. “This has got to stop.”
Yet, there seems to be no way to measure the effectiveness of the law.
Jessica Venezia Pastore, director of communications for Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, said their office also does not have statistics on reported bullying incidents because the law did not criminalize bullying.
She said many cases that may fall under the definition of bullying are typically charged as assault and battery, harassment or identity theft.
“Because of this, an incident would not be coded ‘bullying incident’ but rather an assault case so, therefore, we would not have such statistics,” she said.
“Data on the number of bullying incidents is not required to be collected by the Department,” said JC Considine, director of board and media relations at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, the Bullying Commission will use testimony given earlier this year, at a series of hearings held across the state, when compiling a report at the end of June. In this testimony, many who testified said that reporting bullying incidents to the DESE would be a good idea to improve the legislation.
The source also said that overall effectiveness is something that will be measured with time, not necessarily with statistics.
However, the law mandates that members of each school’s staff must report any incidents of bullying to administrators such as the school principal. If the bullying incident is considered to be at the criminal level, school administrators are required to notify local law enforcement.
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office is also not responsible under the law to track the effectiveness of the bill by how many cases of bullying are reported to state district attorney’s offices as mandated by the bill.
Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan originally requested not to comment on the matter because the Phoebe Prince case was still under investigation in his office. Sullivan again declined to comment on the effectiveness of the anti-bullying legislation after the plea deals were reached.
“The anti-bullying law wasn't passed until May 2010, and there likely have been a few reports since then, but details would not be available with Juvenile confidentiality laws,” said Mary Carey, communications director for Sullivan.
The DESE wasn’t required under the law to review the plans once they were submitted to the Department, but they did so out of “courtesy.”
“We weren’t required to review the plans,” said Considine. “We did it as a courtesy to make sure the districts clearly understood what requirements were required by the law.”
Considine said the statute only stated school districts must submit a plan to the DESE by Dec. 31. He did not know what department, if any, is responsible for reviewing and approving the school districts’ bullying prevention and intervention plans.
The legislation was written by State Rep. Marty Walz (D- Back Bay) last May. Rep. Walz, who declined to be interviewed for this story, said in a Boston Globe story in April that she was frustrated with school districts inaction with their bullying prevention plans.
“I am enormously frustrated that it’s March 2011, and we’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of the law and this many districts have not met the basic requirements of the law,’’ said Walz.
What Walz was referring to was the fact that many schools had failed to submit sufficient plans by the Dec. 31 deadline.
As of March, 37 school districts out of the 393 public school districts and approved charter schools submitted plans deemed insufficient, meaning the districts were missing at least 25 percent of the requirements mandated under the law. Considine said he was not aware of any consequences for failure to submit a satisfactory plan on time.
Included in these districts were several area schools, including South Hadley Public Schools, Holyoke Public Schools, Palmer Public Schools, Adams-Cheshire Regional School District and Southern Berkshire Regional School District.
According to Considine, who did not include South Hadley in the original list of school districts that failed to submit sufficient plans, the school district was one of the first to submit a plan. However, the plan submitted did not include many of the basic requirements required under the legislation.
These schools were required to resubmit a plan or addendums by April 15. At the time of this publication only a third of the schools had done so.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley declined to comment.