Mahwah High School Earns Highest Anti-Bullying Rating in District

Mahwah’s schools have implemented many of the anti-bullying policies the state’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act requires it to, but there are still some areas the district could improve on, officials announced at a recent Board of Education meeting.

Last Wednesday night, the district’s anti-bullying coordinator Lisa Rizzo gave a presentation to the school board on Mahwah’s school self-assessment on its implementation of the HIB law. According to Rizzo, the state Department of Education required the district to grade itself on a 75-point rubric, and submit its self-assessment to the DOE, which will review and certify the scores.

The rubric, Rizzo said, is based on comparing the anti-bullying initiatives each school building has in place with those required by the law. Each school is evaluated separately, and can receive varying numbers of points for partially meeting, meeting, or exceeding the state’s standards.

Of all of the schools in the district, Mahwah High School scored the highest in the self-assessment, 69 out of 75 points. Rizzo pointed out school initiatives like an anti-bullying curriculum taught to students, three HIB-related assemblies, school-wide events like the ‘Week of Respect,’ and Hope Officer training of ninth graders on bystanders vs. up-standers.

The Ridge scored 65 out of 75 points. It cited programs like the Middle School Advisory Program, Random Acts of Kindness Program, and annual assemblies.

Joyce Kilmer scored slightly higher, 67 points. Rizzo mentioned programs like adding structured recess to the building, hosting assemblies, and having Responsive Classroom morning meetings as some of the reasons why.

The district’s three elementary schools, Lenape Meadows, Betsy Ross, and George Washington, scored 63,64, and 65 points, respectively. The report touted programs like the Kindness Tree and monthly Spirit Day assemblies at Lenape, the school-wide morning meetings and West Bergen Mental Health social skill groups at Betsy, and school-wide morning meetings and the Everyday Superhero event at GW.

Overall, the district also identified three areas of improvement it will work on during the 2013-14 school year:

• Add more staff-development opportunities for the school safety teams
• Ongoing parent education on the difference between HIB (incidents that meet the state’s harassment, intimidation, and bullying standards), and peer conflict
• Analyze the data from district-wide surveys to parents, students, and staff

Officials said parent education will be their big focus during the next school year.

The district has submitted its scores to the DOE, and will post them on its website after they are approved by the department, Rizzo said.

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