Thursday, April 30, 2009

Action Alert!

School Violence Prevention Act: Senate Bill 526, The School Violence Prevention Act was passed favorably from the Senate Mental Health and Youth Committee last night. During the discussion on the bill, Senators talked about the recent suicides of middle school students who had been bullied in school as one of many reasons to support this bill. The bill will be on the Senate floor soon. It is critical for your General Assembly Senator to hear from you that you support the bill as it is written.

The bill establishes clear definitions of bullying and harassment and requires each public school district to adopt policies and procedures for dealing with incidents when they occur. The bill includes an enumerated list of categories/characteristics that, real or perceived, have been statistically shown to make students, teachers, and staff more likely targets of school violence, including verbal, social and emotional bullying, as well as physical harassment, threats, beatings, etc.


Please contact your Senator today and let them know you support Senate Bill 526 as written!

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