Bullying | source unknown
by Steve Timmer
Mar 19, 2013, 1:00 PM

Safe schools for all

A few weeks ago, the unserious legislator Steve Drazkowski offered an unserious bill to address a serious problem: school bullying. The Draz’s bill was intended to head off a truly serious bill on the subject. In fact, the Draz talked about his bill in this video. Well, not really; it was me.

The DRAZ on bullying! from LEFT MN on Vimeo.

But the real thing, offered by some serious legislators, has been filed in the House and the Senate. And they’re moving through committees.

Unlike the Draz’s bill, the serious bills by the serious legislators have meaningful definitions of bullying and protected groups, including gay kids, a training requirement for staff, and record keeping and reporting requirements by school boards to the state.

This bill may not be necessary in some districts, the ones that already have comprehensive bullying policies in place. But it clearly is needed in other districts.

I’ll write more about this as the bills advance toward he floor of the two chambers in the Legislature.

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