The Shenendehowa district wants to give students, parents and staff clear guidelines regarding expected student conduct.
The board of education reviewed significant clarifications to the district’s student code of conduct at the Tuesday, Aug. 14, meeting.
The board will hold a hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 11, at which time the public can ask questions about the changes.
A key addition to the document is a section on cyber-bullying. Previously absent from the document, it is now outlined as an infraction on the same level as harassment, intimidation and repeated cutting of classes.
It’s important to add because we know that kids are engaging in much more chatter on blogs and Web sites, and it’s now penetrating into the school environment, said Shenendehowa Superintendent Dr. L. Oliver Robinson.
`Subsequently, we need to have the policy to provide the administration the authority to act on those issues.`
The district’s code of conduct outlines bullying as `face-to-face, or carried out by phone, over the Internet and other ways directed at another person through the ‘posting’ of sensitive and/or private information.`
Although the school has no jurisdiction over what students send each other over the Internet while at home, Robinson said that cyber-bullying can put conduct violations that occur in school in the proper context.
`There becomes an evidentiary set so you can say, ‘You know what, this isn’t a one time thing.’ So you can say, ‘Here are the 10 e-mails,’` he said. `It gives us a chance to look at it and engage conversation with students and parents on both sides to see what action to take.`
District records access officer Larraine Longhurst presented the changes to the board.
`Dr. Robinson appointed an ad hoc committee to review and revise the code of conduct and at the very first meeting the folks who were at the meeting, assistant principals, several, a couple of administrators, and others said that the code worked very well,` she said. `As we moved along, we realized that we could use a lot more detail.`
Board Vice President Janet Grey said she wanted to make sure the code of conduct was enforced consistently.
`We can write everything we want, but when push comes to shove, it has to be applied. Nobody has problems with our code of conduct until it’s not applied consistently,` Grey said. `If it gives the administration more authority to apply that, I’m all for that. But we need to make sure that when we do apply it, we apply it consistently.`
Also clarified in the new code of conduct, which board president William Casey called a `living, breathing code,` is the district’s dress code.
Among the dress code regulations, the document requires that `students will ensure that all underwear is completely covered with outer clothing,` and `will not wear brief garments such as tube tops, net tops, halter tops or other tops that expose one’s midriff, extremely short skirts or shorts, and see-through garments.`
Further, the document prohibits vulgar, obscene or gang-related clothing, as well as any clothing that promotes the use of alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs.
`This needs to be as clear for parents as it does for the children. We need to be clear in our documents what our expectations are,` Casey said. `This document isn’t about the misbehaving kid. We give a clear statement of what the expectations are.`
Robinson said that he had the same message for students that he gives to the players on the football team he coaches.
`You have certain rights as students and certain responsibilities that come with those rights,` he said. `You have a right to a quality education, and you have a responsibility to contribute to an environment to ensure that not only you get a quality education, but that your peers get a quality education
“