Bill would define cyber-bullying

The Education Committee heard testimony Jan. 18 on a bill that would expand the Student Discipline Act to include cyber-bullying.

LB123, introduced by Elk Creek Sen. Lavon Heidemann, would define cyber-bullying as any ongoing use of electronic mail, text messaging, social networking websites or any other form of electronic communication on or off school grounds with the intention of causing harm or serious emotional distress to students or school personnel.

Under the bill, cyber-bullying would be grounds for long-term suspension, expulsion or mandatory reassignment if the behavior results in disruption of the school environment or is a safety threat.

“With the widespread use of the Internet by students, these issues are not going to go away,” Heidemann said, predicting that they instead will become more common.

Deb Kubik, a former Nebraska City High School teacher and a proponent of the bill, was the target of a Facebook group created by students that, she said, was intended to cause harm.

“This took a huge toll on me personally,” she said, explaining that the page caused her to fear for her and her family’s safety.

Kubik said she reported the situation to school administrators but said they did not offer support or address the issue.

Greg Perry of the Nebraska Council of School Attorneys also testified in support. When schools consider cases like these, they must answer two questions, he said: Did the conduct occur on school grounds? And did this conduct cause material disruption?

In Kubik’s case, the incident did not occur on school grounds, he said, which made the situation difficult for administrators and school officials to resolve.

Perry said LB123 would expand existing bullying statutes to recognize that cyber-bullying occuring off school grounds affects students and teachers when they are on school grounds.

Current statutes define bullying as an ongoing pattern of physical, verbal or electronic abuse that occurs:

• on school grounds;
• in a vehicle owned, leased or contracted by a school being used for a school purpose by a school employee or his or her designee; or
• at school-sponsored activities or school-sponsored athletic events.

Larry Ramaekers, superintendent for Aurora Public Schools, also testified in support of LB123.

Ramaekers said he dealt with a situation similar to Kubik’s in which an inappropriate Facebook comment was made. The issue became ongoing, he said, because the message was sent to all of the author’s Facebook friends.

Under the current statute, administrators were able to have the comment removed, he said, but had LB123 been in effect they would have had more tools to deal with the issue.

Barbara Paris, a member of the watchdog group Bully Police USA, also testified in support of the bill, saying that it is time to remove the code of silence among young people. She said that children don’t report cyber-bullying because they believe nothing will be done and because there is “no backbone” within the law.

“We don’t allow this in the workplace,” she said. “People would be fired, yet we expect our children to tolerate this.”

Paris said the question continues to be whether cyber-bullying interferes with a student’s right to learn or a teacher’s right to teach.

“We need this law to protect the educational process, not to interfere with it,” she said.

But Amy Miller, legal director of the ACLU Nebraska chapter, expressed concern that the bill might interfere with students’ free speech rights.

“We hold children to a different standard,” Miller said. “A comment — maybe one or two comments — is part of a child growing up and learning how to live in society.”

In her neutral testimony, she said the bill is too broad and that general matters of opinion could be classified as cyber-bullying if the bill’s language is not revised.

Specifically, she suggested that the bill define “on or off school grounds” to further clarify a school’s responsibility.

“You don’t want to allow schools to govern conduct of students 24 hours a day,” Miller said.

The bill would require school districts to develop and adopt a policy concerning cyber-bullying prevention and education by July 1.

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.