CHeS Harassment and Bullying Prevention (revised, Sept. 2017)
Rationale
CHeS, as an independent Christian School, believes in upholding Biblical standards as outlined by our Statement of Faith and Vision and Goals. This includes a mandate to nurture an environment of mutual respect, dignity, and caring towards all students involved with CHeS. As part of our calling to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, CHeS staff will seek to provide a safe and loving learning environment. We will not tolerate, at any time, any form of harassment, bullying, or threat to our students’ physical, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing, regardless of their personal characteristics. We have included a rationale supportive of this wording in our policy.
In the pursuit of providing a school environment that is safe, caring, orderly and respectful of the God-given worth and dignity of each individual, CHeS has adopted the following guidelines:
- CHeS is committed to protecting the physical safety of all students by identifying and eliminating all forms of violence, intimidation, and aggression.
- CHeS will seek to ensure the social connectedness of all students by identifying and eliminating actions that perpetuate social exclusion, and by providing equal opportunity for all students to participate in the social life of the school.
- CHeS will promote inclusiveness and unity by recognizing that each student is wonderfully made in the image of God and has unique God-given talents that can be used to positively contribute to the social life of the school
- CHeS is committed to eliminating all forms of bullying, including bullying that is targeted at any personal characteristics of a student.
CHeS believes in combatting bullying by seeking to understand and address the underlying causes, and by disciplining bullying behaviour on a case-by-case basis. No policy can anticipate every scenario that will arise, but for clarity, CHeS has adopted the following approach to identifying unacceptable behaviour and distinguishing it from acceptable behaviour. CHeS is committed to protecting the physical safety of all students by identifying and eliminating all forms of violence, intimidation, and aggression.
Examples of unacceptable behaviour include, but are not limited to:
- Disrespecting boundaries, technological, physical, or otherwise
- Pushing, slapping, punching, grabbing, and all other acts of physical aggression
- Posting or sharing any personal information about others
- Not asking permission before posting pictures or stories of others online
- name calling, teasing, insulting, accusing and all purposeful attempts to degrade another individual
- Making up fake identities and pretending to be another person online
Examples of acceptable behaviour include, but are not limited to:
- Inadvertently causing a student to feel uncomfortable while discussing controversial topics relevant to educational outcomes
- Respectfully disagreeing with an individual on matters of opinion and academic debate, such as morality and ethics, the current state of the law, and politics and public policy
- Minor physical force, such as what is required for sports and physical activities like soccer, floor hockey and basketball
Unacceptable behavior will be dealt with through a Biblical model (Matthew 18).
- The teacher or staff person who first becomes aware of questionable behavior will communicate with the individual one on one as a first attempt towards correcting unacceptable behavior;
- If the student is unresponsive and unchanged the teacher or staff will contact the parent and request their help towards changing the behavior;
- If this communication does not produce results, CHeS staff will ask for Principal assistance.
- The Principal may individually interview all parties involved and after investigation:
Determine if further action is required;
Determine consequences for bullying behaviour, taking into account the student’s age, maturity and special needs, if any;
Meet individually with parents of victim and bully; or
Involve outside agencies on behalf of the victim and/or bully.
- The report of the bullying investigation must be documented, and records of the incident retained in accordance with The Personal Information and Privacy Act.
- If a student identifies an issue with another student or staff member, then school authorities will take all reasonable steps to prevent retaliation.