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At Bronx Park Middle School, we aim to make all of our students feel safe in school so that they can be their best selves. We do this through promoting a positive and open environment, as well as working hard to ensure that students have adults around that they can trust and rely on.

By communicating and working together, advisors, teachers, staff and students can create a bully-free environment, and ensure that if someone does feel bullied, that we are prepared to understand the issue and follow up.

If you ever feel like you are being bullied or picked on, or you see someone else being bullied or picked on, please tell an adult. It can be your advisor, any of the teachers, staff, or adults in the school. If you don’t feel comfortable telling an adult at school, you can always use the completely anonymous Online Form or tell your parents and they can let the school know.

If there is a bullying concern made to the school, we will follow these steps:

Investigation

The school will begin an investigation into the bullying claims. This includes:

• Getting a statement from the student, allowing them the opportunity to give their full version of the story.
• Call the reporting student’s parents to let them know of the situation and that we are following up
• Separately talking to alleged suspect, getting statement.
• Calling parent of the offending students and informing them know of situation
• The investigation will continue as the school officials speak to other students to get a clear understanding of the full picture

Mediation and Follow Up

Once the investigation is complete, the school will go handle each case individually, following the steps below:

First Meeting: Advisors hold a Mediation conference where:

1. the conflict is explained,
2. both students get to hear each other’s side,
3. Agreed upon next steps and rules for interaction are established
4. And clear consequences and next steps are laid out and explained in detail.

Once the mediation is complete, both students and their advisors will call parents to inform of progress. Ensure that all students are held accountable to the agreements in mediation

If the issues persist:

• As always, inform parents of ongoing situation
• SECOND MEETING: After gathering the facts and working in conjunction with the school Social Worker, Guidance Counselor, Grade Team Leader, or Dean, the advisors will hold Mediation Conference 2, where:
  • the students mine for how the conflict recurred
  • the students will revisit their rules of interactions from Mediation 1 and modify as needed
  • the students will revisit the consequences and next steps from Mediation 1, and review
  • And clear expectations and guidelines for moving forward are established for going forward
  • (see specific steps sold separately) Ensure that whatever consequences were agreed to in meeting 1 (givebacks, removals, suspensions) are followed through on

If the issue persists:

• Third Meeting: The parents are invited in for a Family Mediation Conference. During these conferences, the school sits with both families and the students to:
  • Review the conflict and the escalation. All families will review the mediation conferences from earlier to discover breakdowns, consequences, follow up and more.
  • Work together to solve the issue: By having parents model the behavior that they seek from their children, the parents and staff will work together with students to ensure that everyone can feel safe in school.
  • And again, lay out the rules of interaction, escalating consequences and further steps.

If problem continues to persist

• At this point, we would have already handed out suspensions and taken further action. Normally it would not reach this step, but if it does and nothing has worked, we will look into superintendent suspensions, safety transfers, and further actions.