Bill Text: NJ A1900 | 2022-2023 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires anti-bullying specialist to annually submit self-assessment on school's effort to implement "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act" directly to DOE.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2022-01-11 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Education Committee [A1900 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2022-A1900-Introduced.html
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
220th LEGISLATURE
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2022 SESSION
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman P. CHRISTOPHER TULLY
District 38 (Bergen and Passaic)
Assemblywoman LISA SWAIN
District 38 (Bergen and Passaic)
SYNOPSIS
Requires anti-bullying specialist to annually submit self-assessment on school's effort to implement "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act" directly to DOE.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.
An Act concerning reporting of certain acts by school employees and amending P.L.1982, c.163.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. Section 1 of P.L.1982, c.163 (C.18A:17-46) is amended to read as follows:
1. Any school employee observing or having direct knowledge from a participant or victim of an act of violence shall, in accordance with standards established by the commissioner, file a report describing the incident to the school principal in a manner prescribed by the commissioner, and copy of same shall be forwarded to the district superintendent.
The principal shall notify the district superintendent of schools of the action taken regarding the incident. Two times each school year, between September 1 and January 1 and between January 1 and June 30, at a public hearing, the superintendent of schools shall report to the board of education all acts of violence, vandalism, and harassment, intimidation, or bullying which occurred during the previous reporting period. The report shall include the number of reports of harassment, intimidation, or bullying, the status of all investigations, the nature of the bullying based on one of the protected categories identified in section 2 of P.L.2002, c.83 (C.18A:37-14), the names of the investigators, the type and nature of any discipline imposed on any student engaged in harassment, intimidation, or bullying, and any other measures imposed, training conducted, or programs implemented, to reduce harassment, intimidation, or bullying. The information shall also be reported once during each reporting period to the Department of Education. The report must include data broken down by the enumerated categories as listed in section 2 of P.L.2002, c.83 (C.18A:37-14), and data broken down by each school in the district, in addition to district-wide data. It shall be a violation to improperly release any confidential information not authorized by federal or State law for public release.
The report shall be used to
grade each school for the purpose of assessing its effort to implement policies
and programs consistent with the provisions of P.L.2002, c.83 (C.18A:37-13 et
seq.). The district shall receive a grade determined by averaging the grades of
all the schools in the district. The commissioner shall promulgate guidelines
for a program to grade schools for the purposes of this section. A school's
anti-bullying specialist shall annually submit a self-assessment evaluating the
school's efforts to implement the
"Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act," P.L.2002, c.82 (C.18A:37-13 et seq.), as amended and supplemented by P.L.2010, c.122 (C.18A:37-13.1 et al.), directly to the Department of Education. An anti-bullying specialist shall not be required to submit the self-assessment prepared pursuant to this section to any school administrator in the school district or to the local board of education for approval prior to submitting the self-assessment to the department.
The grade received by a school and the district shall be posted on the homepage of the school's website. The grade for the district and each school of the district shall be posted on the homepage of the district's website. A link to the report shall be available on the district's website. The information shall be posted on the websites within 10 days of the receipt of a grade by the school and district.
Verification of the reports on violence, vandalism, and harassment, intimidation, or bullying shall be part of the State's monitoring of the school district, and the State Board of Education shall adopt regulations that impose a penalty on a school employee who knowingly falsifies the report. A board of education shall provide ongoing staff training, in cooperation with the Department of Education, in fulfilling the reporting requirements pursuant to this section. The majority representative of the school employees shall have access monthly to the number and disposition of all reported acts of school violence, vandalism, and harassment, intimidation, or bullying.
(cf: P.L.2010, c.122, s.7)
2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first apply to the first full school year following the date of enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill modifies the process by which a school and school district report on efforts to implement the "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act."
Under current law, the Department of Education grades each public school in the State on its efforts to implement the "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act." The department determines each grade based, in part, on a self-assessment completed by each school. The process for submitting the self-assessment is established under guidelines that have been developed by the Commissioner of Education. Under these guidelines, once a school safety team completes the self-assessment, the chief school administrator reviews and presents the self-assessment to the local board of education at a public meeting for approval. Once approved by the board of education, the chief school administrator submits the finalized self-assessment to the department.
Under this bill, a school's anti-bullying specialist will submit the self-assessment evaluating the school's efforts to implement the "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act" directly to the department without first submitting the self-assessment to any school administrator in the district or the local board of education for approval.
