House Anti-Bullying ‘Childhood Hero Act’ gets Unanimous Passage to Senate

      A House bill passed this week aims to keep students who stand up to bullies in Missouri from being punished along with those bullies.   

      “Our goal is to make sure that a victim of violence, an immediate act of violence, isn’t automatically suspended from school for being involved.  It also allows a teacher to act in good faith to help a victim of immediate violence,” said Representative Tricia Byrnes (R-St. Charles), the sponsor of House Bill 1715, the “Missouri Childhood Hero Act.”

Representative Tricia Byrnes (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      Byrnes said the language is meant to, “address some of the bullying and violence that we have seen in our schools across the state, and quite honestly in schools across the country, and I’m very proud that [we], in a bipartisan fashion, have come together to stand up for kids.”

      “This bill is very timely and it is appropriate,” said Representative Raychel Proudie (D-Ferguson)“I believe this bill prevents victims of bullying and physical violence from being victimized twice, both by the altercation and by being suspended pending investigation.”

      The Act would require that public and charter schools have anti-bullying policies and that those policies meet certain requirements.  It would restrict the use of “zero-tolerance” provisions that would punish a victim acting in self-defense, and require that administrators considering punishments consider a statement from any student who engaged in self-defense.   

      The bill specifies that a school employee or volunteer who intervenes in an incident of bullying or other violence is immune from liability when following certain procedures, and that a district or charter school is immune to civil liability for disciplinary actions if following specified procedures.   

      The bill would also extend school districts’ efforts to counsel and educate victims of bullying to those students who engage in bullying.  That provision was added by Marshfield Representative John Black (R), the sponsor of House Bill 2630, which has been paired with HB 1715.

      “As was mentioned in committee by one of the committee members, ‘hurt people hurt people.’  This tries to address the situation by addressing both the student being bullied and to try to get help to the student doing the bullying,” Black told his colleagues.   

      “As a teacher and school counselor myself, we are professionals, we are practitioners, and in as much, should have to answer for making sure that we are keeping eyes on children, and making and cultivating a safe learning environment for children,” said Proudie, who is a certified teacher and school counselor. 

Representative Raychel Proudie (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communication)

      “[The legislation] really does put the onus on schools and school districts to do the appropriate amount of investigation to get to the bottom of what happened, and it also holds individual teachers or adults who are responsible for supervising children to account and to answer for where they are and some of the actions taken.  Anyone who’s been a parent and who has had to go to a school or a school district to continuously ring the alarm about their student being bullied and getting into these physical and even verbal altercations, and the school or school district kind of throwing their hands up and saying, ‘Well, both of them were participating,’ it’s just not fair.”

      Regarding investigations, the legislation would shorten the time in which a district employee who witnesses a bullying incident must report it from two days to one, and require that the report be in writing. 

      Results of investigations would have to be presented to all involved students and include a description of any interventions, initiatives, techniques, or disciplines.  In cases in which an investigation finds that bullying occurred the parents of the instigator must be notified.  If the finding is that the incident rose to the level of 2nd degree harassment, law enforcement would be notified, or in cases involving a student younger than 11, the state Children’s Division would be notified. 

      “I think we’re all familiar with the scenario where two kids get into a fight and they’re both kicked out of school, and that’s what we’re trying to prevent, and I think that’s what this bill prevents,” said Representative Ian Mackey (D-St. Louis)

      “It’s going to require a little more work on the part of administrators and on the part of adults in the school setting to actually investigate what happened, to actually make sure that perpetrators are suspended if they need to be, but that victims are not kicked out of school simply as a result of being bullied.”

      The House voted 150-0 to send that bill to the Senate.

House to consider restrictions on student restraint/seclusion in Missouri public schools

The Missouri House will consider limitations on when the state’s public schools can restrain students or put them in seclusion.

Representative Dottie Bailey (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Two bills were prefiled for the session that begins next month, one by Representative Dottie Bailey (R-Eureka) and one by Representative Ian Mackey (D-St. Louis).  Missouri is one of 11 states that has no protective laws for students with disabilities.  It also has no law protecting against seclusion or restraint.

Bailey, who will be the vice-chair of the House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education, said she was disturbed by the stories she heard when Mackey presented his legislation during the 2019 session.

Bailey said she was surprised to learn how restraint and seclusion were being applied.

“It’s very archaic or medieval, whatever words you want to use,” said Bailey.

Mackey said advocates brought the issue to him and when he researched it, the stories he read were alarming, and many of them come from Missouri.

“I began to research it and quickly found story after story after story of children who had been locked in these rooms, these closets, without their parents knowing, for extended periods of time, for multiple days, in every part of our state,” said Mackey.  “It immediately became clear to me that it was an urgent issue and that it was an issue that we should address right away.”

Representative Ian Mackey (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Bills 1568 (Bailey) and 1569 (Mackey) would ban the use of seclusion and restraint except when there are health or safety concerns for students, teachers, or staff; require that when restraint or seclusion are used that all parties involved except students write a report on the incident; and require the notification of parents or guardians of the incident within 24 hours.  It would allow parents or guardians access to all reports on the incident and the right to a meeting to review it, and allow them to file a complaint with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Bailey said just as important is that the legislation would put into state law a definition of seclusion and restraint.

“When you have a definition or there’s no definition at all, well anything goes.  Putting someone in a room for three hours, well you can just call that a ‘time out,’ because nothing is defined, so we’re going to put some structured guidance around that,” said Bailey.

Both lawmakers say there could be times when seclusion or restraint is necessary, so their bills don’t aim to bar it altogether.

“I think that there are a few stories that exist of children who can at some points be particularly violent, and obviously if a child is being violent and posing a direct, serious physical safety threat to others around them, then that’s an instance where that child needs to be removed and that’s what our bill allows for,” said Mackey.  “What we see happening … is kids are just doing kid things … they’re not exhibiting a threat to the extent that would require them to be locked away, and again without their parents even being notified.”

Two House committees passed Mackey’s legislation in 2019.  He and Bailey are optimistic their bipartisan effort can get a bill through the legislative process in 2020.

The new session begins January 8.

Legislature’s budget follows House lead; fully funds K-12 schools for first time

The state legislature has passed a budget proposal that for the first time fully funds the current form of the K-12 education funding formula.  The $27.7-billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 would pump $48-million more dollars into the state’s public schools, providing them with nearly $3.4-billion.

Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Representative Scott Fitzpatrick (photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The inclusion of full funding of the formula was a personal win for House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob).

“It was the number one thing I was going to figure out how to do when I released the [earliest version of the House’s budget proposal], was to fully fund the formula,” said Fitzpatrick.  “I made that decision early on.”

House Democrats including Representative Deb Lavender (Kirkwood) say they are pleased with the funding increase, but point out that the legislature passed last year a bill reinstating a cap on how much the formula can grow year-to-year.

“Yes we’re fully funding the foundation formula – at a rate of $450-million less than what the foundation formula would have been a year-and-a-half ago,” said Lavender.  “So, are we fully funding that?”

Representative Deb Lavender (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Representative Deb Lavender (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Democrat Leader Gail McCann Beatty (Kansas City) said the budget included a “phantom fully funding of the formula.”

Republicans said reinstating that cap meant the formula would not continue to grow beyond what the legislature could appropriate.

“When the General Assembly took that cap off in 2010, starting at that point the formula has never been funded.  They tweaked the formula in a way that made it unfundable,” said Fitzpatrick.  “My contention would be that the formula that was agreed to in 2005, that everybody got in a room and worked out, is fully funded.”

The legislature’s proposal would also restore funding for school transportation, which Governor Eric Greitens (R) had proposed cutting.

The House and Senate voted to send that budget to Greitens Thursday, one day ahead of the constitutional deadline, and one day after selected House and Senate conferees finalized a compromise between each chamber’s proposals.