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Substantial Disruption

November 13, 2018: Hawaii Seeks Public Input on School Bullying; California to Expand Harassment Training Requirement; Online Comments Reveal Vast Civil Service Bullying

By Mike Tully on November 13, 2018

DOE seeks public input on new rules on bullying and harassment at Hawaii schools

By Mileka Lincoln, Hawaii News Now

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The state Department of Education would like your help crafting new rules for bullying and sexual harassment at public schools across Hawaii.

Over the next several weeks, DOE officials will be hosting public hearings at locations on four islands to gather community feedback on the proposed changes.

Last month, the Hawaii State Board of Education approved for public review updates for the DOE proposals to strengthen the student misconduct and discipline code — known to students as Chapter 19. Among the key changes is elevating bullying and cyberbullying to a Class A offense, the most serious category for disciplinary action.

Officials also want to add a new section titled Chapter 89 Civil Rights Policy and Complaint Procedures for Student(s) Complaints against Adult(s).

These proposals come on the heels of the release of a Hawaii School Health Survey in which more than 16,000 public middle and high school students participated that found fewer teens say they have been bullied at school over the last two years.

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California Employers Required To Provide Sexual Harassment Prevention Training To All Employees By January 1, 2020

by Jessica Golden Cortes and Judith Kong, Davis & Gilbert

In further statutory recognition of the #MeToo movement, California – like New York – has implemented more stringent training requirements for employers.

On September 30, 2018, California passed SB 1343, a bill requiring all California employers with five or more employees to provide sexual harassment prevention training to all employees – both supervisory and non-supervisory – by January 1, 2020 and biannually thereafter. The bill significantly expands existing California law, which previously only required employers with at least 50 employees to provide such training to supervisory employees every two years.

Employer Obligations
By January 1, 2020, California employers with five or more employees must provide:

– at least 2 hours of sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisory employees; and
– at least 1 hour of sexual harassment prevention training to all non-supervisory employees.

This training must also be provided within six months of the employee’s assumption of a supervisory or non-supervisory position (including hiring), as applicable. Employers who provide the required training to an employee after January 1, 2019 are not required to provide training again before January 1, 2020. After January 1, 2020, covered employers must provide sexual harassment prevention training to employees once every two years.

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Online comments suggest history of civil service bullying

by Simon Murphy, The Guardian

When the civil service’s diversity and inclusion champion, Dame Sue Owen, announced in a blog that a review was being launched into how bullying and harassment should be tackled, she may not quite have expected the response that awaited her.

Her piece, which was written in January and claimed the civil service had a “zero tolerance” policy towards the issue, was deluged with more than 120 comments, many from staff who said they had either witnessed or been subjected to bullying themselves.

The responses echo a separate Guardian investigation into workplace bullying in Whitehall, revealing that government departments and other publicly funded bodies have received at least 551 complaints of sexual harassment or bullying over the past three years.

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November 12, 2018: Critiques of Research Into Kids & Tech; Bullying’s Impact on Classroom Performance (Australia)

By Mike Tully on November 12, 2018

Social Media and Suicide: A Critical Appraisal

by Amy Orben, Medium

Great claims require great evidence.

The claim that social media and screen time cause depression and suicide therefore needs evidence of the highest calibre. Yet this kind of evidence does not exist.

Jean Twenge’s newest paper, “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time”, published in Clinical Psychological Science, sets out to provide such evidence – but falls short of this discernible goal. While the paper links social media and technology use to depressive symptoms and suicide rates, the links are so weak and inconsistent they could be artefacts of statistical error. Having re-run parts of Twenge’s analyses on a more recent dataset, I also found no compelling evidence for her claims. Researchers and non-researchers alike need to therefore treat the article’s claims with caution.

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Why We Need More (and Better!) Research on Kids and Tech

By Michael Robb, Common Sense

News about gaming disorders, depression linked to social media use, and the right amount of screen time can leave parents with more questions than answers when it comes to navigating what’s best in today’s 24/7 digital world. Every week it feels like the media blares out a new troubling statistic or study when it comes to the unintended consequences of our digital tools.

According to the latest Common Sense research, the proportion of teens who use social media multiple times a day has doubled over the past six years: In 2012, 34 percent of teens used social media more than once a day; today, 70 percent do. At the same time, most teens — seventy-three percent — think social media is designed to make them spend more time on their devices and distract them and their friends. The days when we could talk about a singular “effect” of social media are long gone; its role is complex, nuanced, and varied. And, as any parent knows, social media is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to thinking about digital well-being. From waking up to phone notifications to Googling directions to soccer games, what we do with tech tools increasingly feels like a necessary part of daily life.

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Report finds bullying and emotional and behavioural problems impact on primary students’ learning ability (AU)

November 9, 2018 by Christine Tondorf, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (Medical Press)

New research has found that a large percentage of Australian eight to 12 year olds are being bullied and/or experiencing emotional difficulties – and these children are falling behind their peers in numeracy and reading in the classroom.

The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Centre for Adolescent Health has produced the Student Wellbeing, Engagement and Learning across the Middle Years report for the Federal Department of Education and Training.

According to the report, a substantial proportion of students in middle primary school (Years 3 to 5) are not tracking well. 20 per cent experience persistent emotional problems (like depression and anxiety), 20 per cent have behavioral problems, and around 10 per cent self-report low wellbeing.

More than 20 per cent of children in Years 3 to 5 are also being bullied across two or even three years. The statistics in the report come from a longitudinal study of more than 1200 Melbourne students – the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS).

CATS project leader, MCRI’s Professor George Patton said it is likely that every Years 3, 4 and 5 classroom in Australia has at least one child experiencing persistent bullying and/or emotional and behavioral issues.

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