Humboldt County educators will be updating their anti-bullying policies in anticipation of three new state laws, two of which go into effect this summer.

California Assembly Bill 746 and Assembly Bill 1156, which expand the definition of bullying and cyberbullying, take effect on July 1. Assembly Bill 9, which addresses bullying based on gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, was signed into law by the governor in July 2011.

”It incorporates a lot more Facebook and social media,” said Glen Senestraro, superintendent of the Fortuna Union High School District, referring to AB 1156. “Before, it was basically dealing with things on campus. Everything’s ever changing. It’s good to keep up with the times.”

Senestraro said the Fortuna Union High School District Board of Trustees updated its bullying policy at its April meeting in anticipation of these new laws.

AB 746, which passed in February 2011, pertains to cyberbullying and specifies that an electronic act includes a post on a social network Internet site, according to the law.

AB 1156 addresses bullying prevention in school safety plans and interdistrict attendance policies, said Renae Will, executive assistant at the Humboldt County Office of Education. The law broadens the definition of bullying for discipline purposes and addresses and defines cyberbullying. AB 1156 also requires the California Department of Justice and the Department of Education to provide bullying prevention training to school districts and county offices of education if funding is available, Will said.

AB 9 requires school districts to adopt a policy that prohibits bullying based on a wide range of characteristics, including gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. AB 9 also requires schools to adopt a procedure for receiving and investigating bullying complaints. School personnel also must intervene immediately if they witness an act of bullying. AB 9 was sponsored by Equality California and was drafted in memory of Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old Tehachapi boy who committed suicide in 2010 as a result of bullying over his sexual orientation, according to California Legislative Information.

AB 1156 would define bullying as any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act, including communications made in writing or by means of an electronic act. The law defines bullying as sexual harassment, hate violence or harassment and threats or intimidation that places a student in fear of harm, has a detrimental effect on a student’s mental or physical health, his or her academic performance and his or her ability to benefit from school.

An electronic act means the transmission of a communication via a text, sound or image, or a post on a social network by means of an electronic device including a telephone, computer or pager, according to the new law.

Officials with Eureka City Schools will ask the school board in June to consider a policy that will encourage individual schools to address bullying and harassment in their comprehensive school safety plans, said Richard Lentz, assistant superintendent of educational services. The proposed policy will incorporate the new state laws, including AB 123, which expands the definition of a disruption, Lentz said.

In an effort to improve student behavior, the district already launched a new program last spring at the elementary school level called Positive Behavior Interventions and Support, or PBIS, Lentz said. The district will bring that program to Zane Middle School next year. According to Lentz, the three main tenets at the district’s elementary schools is that all students will be safe, respectful and responsible. The new program will teach kids what those rules mean on the playground, in the school corridors and in the classroom, he said.

The PBIS program came out of a districtwide anti-bullying summit in January 2011 that included input from psychologists, principals, counselors, teachers and district administrators, Lentz said. In January, Eureka City Schools decided to investigate behavior programs and felt PBIS, which came from the University of Oregon, would be the most effective, he said.

”We will see a decrease in in-school and out-of-school suspensions by using those new programs,” Lentz said. “I would wager on that.”

In anticipation of the new state laws, Northern Humboldt Union High School District has begun updating its board policy regarding bullying, said McKinleyville High School Principal David Lonn. Lonn said he has also proposed developing a specific policy that would emphasize bullying and cyberbullying as being inappropriate at school. Lonn said his proposed policy would also establish a uniform complaint procedure specifically for harassment and bullying.

Lonn said he has received input from other administrators at McKinleyville High School as well as officials at Arcata High School and Northern Humboldt Superintendent Kenny Richards.

”There is no verification that this is what’s going to happen,” he said. “But I just took our uniform complaint procedure — took basically the same wording and principles — and put in the bullying and cyberbullying language with it.”

Lonn said due to the confidential nature of some of the incidents, he couldn’t go into too much detail about specific cases of bullying or cyberbullying at McKinleyville High School. But a phenomenon has been going around campus involving Twitter, he said. Someone has set up Twitter accounts under the user name @mhsprobs, Lonn said, and there have been instances of inappropriate comments made using that Twitter account.

Similar Twitter accounts for Arcata High School and Fortuna High School have cropped up, Lonn said. The first time administrators were made aware of these accounts, they asked Twitter to remove them. But someone created another account shortly after, Lonn said.

”We’ve been trying to deal with that situation,” he said. “It’s a fine line between freedom of speech and whether it’s bullying or harassment.”

For more information on the assembly bills, visit www.leginfo.ca.gov.

Jessica Cejnar can be reached at 441-0504 or at jcejnar@times-standard.com.