Cyberbullying is a real concern among elementary and middle school educators. Students begin to acquire and use electronic devices in elementary and middle school, at a time when they are not yet knowledgeable and skilled in their appropriate use. Elementary and middle school students are still developing a sense of community norms, customs, conventions, and morals. What may seem like innocent conduct to one elementary or middle school student can alarm and offend another student. Electronic devices vastly expanding the reach of a student's communications fall right in the middle of that development. What was once whispered to a single student on the playground now gets distributed electronically to a whole school community.
Elementary and middle school officials thus properly train and instruct students against cyberbullying. But school officials may also exaggerate cyberbullying's actual effects and punish cyberbullying disproportionately. School officials may do so of their own accord or out of pressure from overwrought parents or teachers. Elementary and middle schools sometimes suspend or expel students for cyberbullying, causing significant negative developmental and educational impacts. Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team if your elementary or middle school student faces cyberbullying charges. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
Elementary and Middle School Cyberbullying Laws
While your student's elementary or middle school may have a cyberbullying policy, that policy is likely the result of state legislation requiring or authorizing the school to adopt and implement the policy. The regulation of cyberbullying occurs at the state level rather than the federal level. Chances are very good that your state has adopted a cyberbullying law applying to your student's elementary or middle school. A policy center tracking cyberbullying legislation shows that nearly all state legislatures have adopted cyberbullying laws. State legislatures typically attach or embed their cyberbullying provisions within state anti-bullying laws. Those anti-bullying and cyberbullying laws typically make the conduct a criminal offense. They also typically require the state's schools to adopt and enforce cyberbullying policies. Chances are very good that your elementary or middle school student may suffer school discipline for cyberbullying under state law, if proven to have engaged in that misconduct. Let our attorneys help defend your student against cyberbullying charges.
State Cyberbullying Definitions
We all tend to know what cyberbullying entails. The elements of a cyberbullying offense typically include (1) a student's use of an electronic communication device of some form, (2) to willfully threaten, intimidate, or harass another student on multiple occasions, (3) in a way that either causes the student mental or emotional harm or interferes with the student's education. Accidentally striking fear in another student by a mistaken message would not qualify. Cyberbullying is an intentional, purposeful act. A single threatening message might well not qualify. Cyberbullying typically involves more than one act. And harm or intimidation to an especially sensitive student would not qualify, if a reasonable student would not have suffered harm or intimidation.
Mississippi's anti-bullying law provides an example. The law prohibits “any pattern of gestures or written, electronic or verbal communications, or any physical act or any threatening communication” that places a student in “in actual and reasonable fear of harm” or creates a hostile environment. Mississippi law requires elementary and middle schools to adopt and enforce cyberbullying policies consistent with the state's law. Missouri's anti-bullying law provides a similar example. Missouri's law, though, lists the forms of electronic communications that may qualify for a cyberbullying offense, “including, but not limited to, a message, text, sound, or image by means of an electronic device including, but not limited to, a telephone, wireless telephone, or other wireless communication device, computer, or pager.” Get our help if your elementary or middle school student faces cyberbullying charges under one of these laws.
Elementary and Middle School Cyberbullying Policies
Elementary and middle schools nationwide adopt policies to comply with the cyberbullying laws adopted in the vast majority of U.S. states. Those policies may word-for-word adopt the state's statutory language or may supply their own definitions for cyberbullying, as long as the policies at least meet the state's law. The Metropolitan Nashville (TN) Board of Education's cyberbullying policy is an example. The Nashville schools' policy defines cyberbullying as
“a form of bullying undertaken through the use of electronic devices. Electronic devices include, but are not limited to, telephones, cellular phones or other wireless telecommunication devices, text messaging, emails, social networking sites, instant messaging, videos, websites, or fake profiles.”
The Dallas (TX) Independent School District's cyberbullying policy is another example. While prohibiting bullying generally, the Dallas schools' policy includes “electronically transmitted acts – i.e., Internet, cell phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), or wireless hand-held device.” Your student's elementary or middle school very likely operates under a similar school district policy. Let us help defend your elementary or middle school student against disciplinary charges brought under such a policy.
Examples of Elementary and Middle School Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying can vary according to the age and experience of the students involved, their disagreement or dispute, the device or devices involved, and other circumstances. School cyberbullying policies have such broad definitions for the misconduct that the policies may reach many actions that a parent or student might not consider to qualify as bullying conduct. Beware the broad scope and potential application of those policies. The following examples may qualify under your student's school cyberbullying policy:
- a fifth-grade student repeatedly sends profane text messages to another fifth-grade student in a science class, mocking the student for the student's dress and demeanor, until the student leaves the classroom in tears and refuses to return;
- an eighth-grade student uses a school computer to repeatedly sexually proposition another eighth-grade student who has objected to and refused the advances, causing the student to refuse to attend school;
- a seventh-grade student uses a personal cellphone to share violent videos with a student whom the sender dislikes and wants to stay away from the student's school friends, causing the student to isolate from study groups;
- a sixth-grade student sends several emails using school laptop computers threatening to beat up another student unless the student gives the sender the student's papers and problem answers for an undue advantage in class, causing the student to skip turning in assignments and answers.
Elementary and Middle School Cyberbullying Punishment
School cyberbullying policies generally reserve to the school's disciplinary officials the discretion to impose discipline all the way up to long-term school suspension or school expulsion. The Nashville schools' cyberbullying policy is an example, stating, “A substantiated charge against a student may result in corrective or disciplinary action up to and including suspension.” The Atlanta Public Schools' cyberbullying policy, within its student handbook, is another example, warning that “the student may face long-term suspension or expulsion. The Atlanta schools' policy recommends progressive discipline. A first offense may warrant only a one-to-three-day in-school suspension, while a second offense may bring up to a three-day out-of-school suspension, and a third offense expulsion.
Just because your student's elementary or middle school finds that your student committed a cyberbullying offense does not mean that your student must suffer discipline. Our attorneys may be able to help you show the school that your student acted under mitigating circumstances and that alternative remedies make more sense. You and your student may agree to remedial education and training, school service, or another remedy that does not qualify as discipline and thus saves your student from suffering a disciplinary record. Let us help your student make that showing.
Discipline for Off-Campus Cyberbullying
Your elementary or middle school student may face cyberbullying charges even for off-campus conduct. Students use electronic devices at home, in the streets, and in other places away from school, to communicate with other students. Some of those communications may qualify as intimidating and harassing. Generally, students are free to conduct themselves as they see fit without school interference when they are not at school. But if their off-campus conduct toward another student discourages that other student from attending school or participating in school activities, the school may have the state's authority to discipline the student.
More than half of state legislatures empower school districts to discipline for off-campus cyberbullying, with the qualification that the conduct must interfere with the victim student's instructional program. The cyberbullying policy developed by Georgia's Department of Education to comply with that state's law is an example. Georgia's state-required cyberbullying policy extends “to acts of cyberbullying which occur through the use of electronic communication, whether or not such electronic act originated on school property or with school equipment,” if the off-campus cyberbullying has the purpose of interfering with the victim's school instruction. Let our attorneys help if your elementary or middle school student faces off-campus cyberbullying school disciplinary charges. We may be able to show that the school's policy does not reach your student's off-campus conduct.
Discriminatory Cyberbullying
Many state cyberbullying laws include protections against cyberbullying that expressly discriminates or harasses with respect to the victim student's race, sex, religion, or other protected characteristic. Students at all levels, including those in elementary and middle school, tend to project their harassment or intimidation against characteristics that anti-discrimination laws protect. Students may, for instance, mock another student's skin color, hair, facial features, or other physical characteristics associated with ethnicity, race, or sex.
Elementary and middle school students are still learning about discrimination and may not know the boundaries between permissible joking and teasing and impermissible harassment and demeaning based on protected characteristics. But school policies commonly include anti-discrimination protections in their cyberbullying policies, under laws like those in place in Vermont, New York, and other states. The stakes may be higher if your student's school has accused your student of discriminatory cyberbullying. Let our attorneys help you and your student fight any such charges so that your student stands the best chance of avoiding crippling discipline.
Impacts of Elementary and Middle School Discipline
You may think that a disciplinary record in elementary or middle school would have little effect. But don't underestimate the potential impacts. Elementary and middle school students are undergoing substantial physical, mental, emotional, and social development. Any interruption in schooling, change in school peers or courses, or change in peer and teacher relationships can have a substantial negative impact. Elementary and middle school students suffering discipline may be so embarrassed, and so shunned by other students and disrespected by teachers and school staff, as to suffer significant developmental and academic harms. Your student's development and future are worth pursuing the best possible outcome to cyberbullying charges. Get our Student Defense Team's help.
Elementary and Middle School Disciplinary Procedures
Your student's elementary or middle school is very likely subject to a school district policy requiring that school officials provide you and your student with due process relating to any cyberbullying disciplinary charge. The Constitution guarantees individuals due process of law against state actions affecting property and liberty interests. State school discipline laws routinely recognize student constitutional rights to due process when facing discipline. The Kentucky Board of Education's guidelines for student discipline are an example, requiring “due process procedures for student suspensions or expulsions” under Kentucky Revised Statute Sections 158.150 and 160.295(6).
In short, your elementary or middle school student has procedural rights that can protect your student from unfair punishment based on cyberbullying charges. Let our Student Defense Team invoke those procedures on your student's behalf. We can help you and your student pursue early voluntary dismissal of the charges through negotiations or pursue a formal hearing to contest the charges as necessary. We can also appeal adverse findings and seek alternative special relief, even if you have already lost all hearings.
Student Defense for Cyberbullying Disciplinary Charges
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available nationwide to defend elementary and middle school students facing cyberbullying school disciplinary charges. Our attorneys help hundreds of students defeat school disciplinary charges of all kinds, including cyberbullying charges. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
