Olweus Bully Prevention Program

Jefferson is currently in our fifth school year using the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, or OBPP for short. Olweus is designed to improve peer relations and make school a safer, more positive place for students to learn and develop. OBPP includes school-wide, classroom, individual and community strategies that create a safe and positive school climate, improve peer relations, and increase awareness of and reduce the opportunities and rewards for bullying behavior. At the beginning of every year, we have a bullying kick-off assembly which includes live theater, colorful characters, audience participation, visuals, and evidence-based bullying prevention techniques to kick off our program.

Bullying is targeted at three main levels:

School level: involves increased adult supervision of school areas that are frequently the setting for bullying (i.e. playground, cafeteria, coat room, and bathrooms).

Classroom level: involves establishing clear and consistently enforced rules against bullying, along with regular class meetings and activities aimed to reinforce rules and anti-bullying values and norms. Class meetings and activities present the harm caused by bullying and strategies to prevent it. The program also encourages parental involvement through meetings and discussion of the problem and efforts to address it.

Individual level: includes interventions with bullies, victims and their parents. Interventions are designed to ensure that the behavior be brought to an end and provides support for the victim. This includes a meeting with Mrs. Castrogiovanni and myself to identify the behavior, define bullying, how the student(s) feel, better choices for the future, what the consequence will be, and a call home.

JEC's Anti-Bullying Pledge:

1. We will not bully others

2. We will help students who are bullied

3. We will include students who are left out

4. If somebody is being bullied, we will tell an adult at school and an adult at home.

For more information, please go to the OBPP website by clicking here.