By Sarah Favot

Boston University Statehouse Program

BOSTON — After years of legislative wrangling it took a tragedy to get a tough new anti-bullying law approved on Beacon Hill this year.

But not all are happy with the law that was passed after the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, a South Hadley High School student bullied by classmates, made international headlines.

Some school principals say they must rewrite successful anti-bullying programs that were in effect before the Legislature passed the new law in May. Anti-bullying advocates say the law doesn’t go far enough. One legal expert warns that vague language could open the door to many cases that fall short of real bullying.

Sean Varano, a criminal justice professor at Roger Williams University, says the law allows any student to file a complaint of bullying if he or she considers any kind of problem with a fellow student as emotionally harmful.

Varano said under the definition, a kindergartner telling a classmate she wouldn’t be invited to his birthday party could be charged with causing emotional harm.

“I believe that the legislation as written was a disaster,” Varano said in an interview. “The legislators created a Pandora’s Box and I don’t think they have any idea of the implications in schools.”

Mandate for schools

Massachusetts school districts had until Dec. 31 to file plans detailing how faculty and administrators will intervene in situations of bullying, how staff will be trained and how the schools will educate students on the dangers of bullying.

According to the Department of Education as of Sept. 29, 330 school districts, out of 394 have filed such plans.

Educators have mixed feelings about the new requirements. Barnstable High School Principal Patrick Clark says the law “forces everyone to think about the right questions,” but he echoes the complaints of other administrators who say their schools already had effective plans in place.

“Many of the schools were already three-quarters of the way there,” Clark says. “I’m not sure if the state law was necessary.”

The Pittsfield District Schools implemented an internationally recognized Olweus program last year.

The program, developed in Norway, requires adults in the school building to report and immediately handle incidents of bullying.

“We introduced Olweus to our staff last year before it (bullying) became such a big deal with the state,” said Christopher Jacoby, principal at Theodore Herberg Middle School in Pittsfield. “We feel confident that we were ahead of the curve.”

Principals such as Jacoby say although they had already tackled the problem the law forced them to change reporting procedures.

The law requires adults working in the school building to report any suspected acts of bullying to the school principal, or a designee. It is up to the principal to investigate the situation, inform parents if bullying has occurred and keep a record of the incident to track patterns in student behavior.

Gus Sayer, superintendent of South Hadley School District, said his district had implemented its own program in February based on recommendations of an anti-bullying task force made up of parents, teachers, students and community leaders.

“When we’d get reports from kids, they were always investigated by the principals and then consequences were determined,” he said. “With the new procedures it is much more detailed how you will notify parents, what rights the bullies have, and what the plans will be for students.”

A fuzzy definition

There are concerns the new law will put principals in a difficult role of tracking complaints and determining what constitutes bullying.

“What we’re going to see is that it’s going to take a lot of principals’ time,” said Colleen O’Brien, superintendent of Worcester District Schools.

“They’ve been calling us, asking, ‘What do you think about this – is this bullying?’ They’re being overly cautious.”

Jacoby said the Pittsfield district’s original plan made a clearer distinction between bullying and simple conflicts between students.

“Conflict is two kids who are at the same level of power and strength who are calling each other names and maybe shoving,” said Jacoby. “Bullying is where it’s a repeated act where someone enjoys a position of power over the other person.”

The law also requires that teachers receive formal training to detect and prevent bullying and that bullying education be incorporated into students’ curriculum. This has led to complaints about the costs of the new law.

O’Brien said that the Worcester School District received federal funding through the Safe and Drug-free Schools and Communities Act to implement research-based curriculum in grades four through six. Under the new law, Worcester schools have expanded the curriculum to kindergarten through grade six, but that money will soon run dry.

“This is an unfunded mandate,” O’Brien said of the new state law. “And I think schools will struggle.”

The new law comes after years of failed attempts in the Legislature to come up with anti-bullying legislation.

Tragedy spurred changes

Rep. Antonio Cabral, D-New Bedford, said he’s been filing anti-bullying bills every session for the past few sessions, but that it took the tragedy of Prince’s suicide to push the bill through the Legislature.

“That’s what happens with legislation,” said Cabral. “Sometimes an incident of that magnitude highlights the seriousness and how it impacts kids and families and it brings the energy for us to get it done.”

Cabral said his bill had tougher standards, including fines for teachers and school staff members who do not reported an incident of bullying.

“Folks felt that we didn’t need to go that far,” Cabral said.

Sen. James Eldridge, D-Acton, who filed an anti-bullying bill in the Senate last session, said he had hoped the bill would raise understanding about targeted students such as gay, lesbian or transgendered.

“Studies have shown that particularly children who are gay, lesbian, transgendered are often targeted for being made fun of and I had hoped to highlight this fact and bring more awareness to it,” said Eldridge, whose district includes Shirley.

The law was an amalgamation of several bills filed by different legislators, including Cabral, Eldridge and Sen. Thomas P. Kennedy. Kennedy, D-Brockton, said this is a common practice.

“There is a certain process that legislation goes through, one particular bill has additions and modifications and going through committee process,” said Kennedy. “The end result is that we addressed a very serious and critical problem legislatively.”

But Varano, the Roger Williams criminologist, said incidents that should be treated as hate-crimes will merely be called bullying under the new law.

Massachusetts law defines a hate crime is any criminal act motivated by bigotry or bias involving racial, religious, gender or sexual orientation.

“Hate crime in essence creates a protected classes of people,” said Varano. “If someone assaults you and says that was based on race, it criminalizes the behavior.”

Wendy Murphy, a professor at the New England School of Law, is also concerned about what she says is its failure to differentiate between bullying and hate crimes.

“I fear that it’s going to mislead parents to mischaracterize civil rights violations as more trivial bullying. [The legislation] should make it clear that it could be civil rights harassment,” she said.

Murphy is thinks the law gives principals too much discretion. She said it would be better to have an outsider with no ties to the school oversee the bullying program.

“I worry a lot about the principals being the ultimate authority,” she said. “Nine times out of 10, they have the reputation of the school as a top priority and only the most honest principal would admit it.”

With the implementation of new procedures and policies this fall, most principals say it is too soon to tell whether the law is effective in preventing bullying.

“I’ve not seen any change in our school in terms of the number of incidents of bullying, no more and no less,” said Pittsfield’s Jacoby. “I expect there will be fewer instances of bullying, but it’s too soon to tell whether it’s having any impact.”