Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
Quote Originally Posted by BetCheckBet View Post
Also zero tolerance for bullying is literally impossible to enforce. Even defining bullying is extremely difficult and the conflict is often not entirely one sided. Sure once in awhile you have a classic bullying situation where it can be done but it is far from the norm.
True zero tolerance is impossible, and in fact it has been tried in the past and implemented poorly, such as schools which auto-suspended kids for physical fighting, regardless of whether one was just defending himself.

But solving bullying actually isn't all that hard in suburban schools.

When receiving bullying complaints, you call in (separately) the kids involved. You also ask the victim for witnesses, if any. You get the full story from everyone.

If it's clear that bullying occurred, you give the bully some kid of moderate punishment like detention, plus contact their parents and make them understand that further instances of this will result in suspension.

If it's not clear exactly what occurred, you tell the alleged bully to have zero contact with the victim, and never to talk to or about them anywhere on campus, unless directed to do so by a teacher. You then tell the alleged bully that violating this will result in severe consequences.

Done.

This tactic won't work in schools with a lot of gang members or hardened criminals, but it would work great in a suburban school.

Where it doesn't work is when you start injecting touch-feely "restorative justice" bullshit into the mix, where the focus is placed upon the bully understanding himself, rather than just putting a stop to the harmful behavior.
Without getting into a huge discussion... The 10% of bullying that is physical is really easy to address as its a legal crime. Schools really need to have close to a zero tolerance position for physical assault. I'm more so referring to the 90 percent of bullying which is not physical and typically directed at those with poor social skills, low frustration tolerance, and major anger control issues. I'd actually compare it to trying to solve the bullying issues that go on in this forum. When you actually look at policies that work for that it's more so done at a systemic level and improving environment rather than working with individuals 1-1.