Schools

Disproportionate Number of Bullied Students Are Special Ed

Stratford SEPTA hosted a presentation earlier this month on bullying against special education students; special education attorney offers tips on 'recognition and prevention.'

Whether or not the young Orange, CT, teen ran away from home for three days due to alleged bullying or not, there’s no doubt that bullying, among children, teens and adults, is an issue receiving a great deal of attention these days.

 Stratford SEPTA hosted a recent presentation entitled, “Bullying and Kids with Disabilities: Realities and Actions,” which included tips from a special education attorney and a special education advocate who addressed the Stratford audience.

The statistics are appalling, as every day in the United States, an estimated 160,000 students avoid school because of bullying. While getting bullied can happen to anyone, children with disabilities are much more likely to experience it, explained special education attorney Jennifer Laviano and special education advocate Julie Swanson at a recent Stratford SEPTA presentation on bullying and kids with disabilities.

Find out what's happening in Stratfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It was held on March 16 at , the event shared some of the startling realities about bullying and this student population. For instance, in a 2009 Massachusetts Advocates for Children survey of parents with children on the autism spectrum, nearly nine in 10 reported their children had dealt with bullying.

And in Connecticut, the person designated to handle calls related to bullying for the State Department of Education reports that more than half of all calls are related to special needs students getting bullied  – even though they are just 12 percent to 15 percent of the student population. The state is taking the issue of students with disabilities getting bullied very seriously, the presenters shared.

Find out what's happening in Stratfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Bullying can be physical, verbal, and emotional. Emotional bullying, such as intimidation through gestures, exclusion, and shunning, is subtle and hard to prove. Today, a lot is heard about cyber-bullying, which can involve emails, instant messages, text or digital messages, web pages, blogs, social networking sites, or chat rooms.

It’s not just that special needs kids are more vulnerable because of their core deficits, but also that they’re being teased because they’re in special education – it’s disability-based harassment.

Intentionally or not, adults often blame a child with social skill deficits, Swanson and Laviano noted. Children with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be abused by adults.

How to Recognize and Address Bullying of Your Child

Possible signs of bullying include sudden onset of school avoidance, refusal to attend certain classes or school in general. One indication may be the child often asking to be sent to the nurse.

There are two main approaches to address bullying: school wide and student centered, and each can be reactive or proactive. School-wide approaches include anti-bullying programs. Student centered approaches can involve prepping the child to learn the appropriate social skills to deal with bullying.

Bullying is an issue related to the Individualized Education Plans (IEP), the presenters pointed out.

Classroom teachers often assume the special ed teacher is taking care of it, according to the presenters. But the special ed teacher may well only see the student in the resource room, and it’s much more likely the bullying is taking place in the hallway, the lunch room, the restrooms, the bus, etc.

What to do? The first step in a student-centered approach, suggested Laviano and Swanson, is to explore with the student what’s happening. The school can set up a data collection system so that adults are watching what’s happening outside of the classroom. Schedule a team meeting to make all teachers and staff aware of the problem; convene a PPT to formally request an IEP plan change to help. The team should set up a schedule for monitoring and data collection. A functional behavior analysis can be done to understand the reasons behind the behavior that leads you to suspect bullying.

But…the school district can’t help if you don’t report what’s happening.

Keep in mind, the presenters said, that the focus must be on your child, not the bully. The school district cannot, by law, tell you what kind of discipline may have been given.  Instead, the school can help prevent bullying from happening in the future to your child.

When developing related IEP goals, consider sensory, language, and self-help (e.g., hygiene) issues that may be the reason for the bullying. Goals can include self-advocacy and daily living skills. Teachers might set up a buddy system to help the child stay safe in unstructured settings (ideally with incentives for those children to become buddies).  

 When identifying the problem, know that it could be due to an:

  • inability to understand/recognize social cues that indicate bullying (such as gesturing)
  • inability to respond effectively (lack of a strategy bank)
  • inability to groom properly
  • inability to self-advocate

Remember: You can’t fix a problem you don’t recognize.

Don’t assume:

  • your student understands the nuances of language
  • your way of thinking is the student’s way of thinking
  • your student understands what is expected of him or her
  • your student knows how to act

For example, the unwritten rules may not be understood. Say there’s a senior table in the lunch room and your child, a sophomore, tries to sit there. Even teachers may think “everyone knows that’s the senior table,” but does your child?

Is the bullying a reportable offense, in accordance with school policies?  If so, it should be reported.

What doesn’t work?  Telling the child to walk away, ridiculing any of the students involved (including the bully), assuming it’s “just a part of growing up,” ignoring the problem, or telling students who are in conflict to “work it out.”

The bottom line is that bullying should not and does not have to be tolerated.

"Getting involved in your local PTA can help in building relationships with educators, so that if a bullying incident comes up, approaching the school about it can be much easier," says Stacy Barnaby, president of Stratford SEPTA. "We hope that parents realize how much educators care and that children and families are not alone in coming up with strategies to prevent and address incidents." 

To learn more about Connecticut law and programs, visit the Connecticut Commission on Children’s bullying page: http://www.cga.ct.gov/coc/bullying.htm. For more information on Stratford SEPTA, visit www.stratfordsepta.org or connect with the “Stratford Septa” group on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the Stratford Academy PTSA and Stratford Parents' Place joined forces on Wednesday, March 30, to present a forum entitled, “The Ultimate Remedy for Bullying - A Positive School Climate,” which was held at the Library/Media Center of Johnson House/. 

The guest speaker was Dr. Jo Ann Freiberg of the Connecticut State Department of Education, who discussed recommendations for positive school change that can help create better school climates and decrease the incidences of bullying in schools.

Freiberg is a former teacher and leading authority in the state on bullying in schools, and her approach focuses on redefining bullying to include "all mean behaviors."

For more information about the topic or to learn more about the workshop, call Stratford Parents' Place, 203-381-6992 or go to www.townofstratford.com/parentsplace.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here