Task Force: Anti-Cyberbullying Policies That Work

Congratulations!

The School Board at your local school has put you in charge of coming up with an extensive policy to combat cyberbullying at your school. The goal here is to consider previous methods and ideas and try to compile and reform them into an effective anti-bullying policy online.

Why Are We Doing This?

Cyberbullying is, “The use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.” There are steps that can be taken to combat bullying and there is ample information available on what has worked/ what has not worked in the past. Here, we ask you to create a well-organized anti-bullying policy to decrease the occurrence of bullying online. 

Steps:

1. Try to write out an anti-bullying policy that you think will work best. 
   1. How will you define cyberbullying? What does cyberbullying look like?
   2. Will there be more options to report students that are seen bullying online? Will they be anonymous? What will they look like? What can online platforms do to handle cyberbullies?
   3. What options will be available for someone who has been a victim of bullying? Will there be therapists available in the school? Will it be group therapy, individual therapy, or both? 
   4. What types of consequences will there be for bullying? Will different types of bullying have different consequences? When will parents be involved?
   5.  Should we be focusing on restorative punishment for individuals exhibiting aggressive behavior online? What could that look like?
2. Think through the possible objections about your policy that someone could have and how you would answer them. 
   1. Does the policy seem to prevent bullying in ways different and more effective than the past? 
   2. What features are missing in a group’s plan? 
   3. Which aspects of the plan do you agree with and which aspects do you disagree with?
3. Share with the group and see if you can convince them that your group did the best job at describing a policy that effectively addresses the issue of bullying in our nation.

Things to Keep in Mind:

• You do not have to come up with an exhaustive list of procedures for your plan. It’s better to come up with a few requirements that you feel confident with and spend time thinking through possible objections to it.
• You don’t have to worry about answering all possible objections, but you should have some defense of why you think your reasons are more important.
• Your requirements should be things that governments could realistically implement.