Anti-Bullying

Eliminate Bullying, Harassment, and Intimidation

Calvert County Public Schools strongly believes that all students should feel safe and secure at school, school-sponsored activities and events, and while on school buses. These environments should be free from all forms of bullying, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination.

To that end, Calvert County Public Schools will not condone or allow any verbal, non-verbal, written, or physical assaults or harassments in any form, including hazing or similar activities. Any activities that humiliate, tease, harass, injure, or potentially injure as part of a ritual related to belonging to a club, team, or group are strictly forbidden.

Fill out the Bullying, Harassment, or Intimidation Reporting Form Online

Download the Bullying, Harassment, or Intimidation Reporting Form (Print Version)

Select a question below to learn more.

What is bullying?

Bullying, harassment, and intimidation are intentional acts, including verbal, non-verbal, physical, or written conduct, that create a hostile educational environment by substantially interfering with a student’s educational benefits, opportunities, or performance, or with a student’s physical or psychological well-being. Bullying, harassment and intimidation are:

Motivated by an actual or a perceived personal characteristic, including race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, familial status, marital status, physical or mental disability, physical attributes, socio-economic status, gender identity, sexual orientation or genetic information; and are
Threatening or seriously intimidating.

Conduct that occurs off school property but substantially disrupts the orderly operation of a school is also of concern.

How do I recognize bullying?

In general, bullying is behavior that is done intentionally, is repeated, and:

Uses social or physical power against another person. Examples of this would be shoving, hitting, or intentionally keeping someone out of a popular social group.
Hurts, scares, or is mean. Examples would include teasing in a mean way or spreading rumors about someone.

Bullying can take many forms. It can be:

Physical (shoving, hitting, tripping),
Verbal (name calling, taunting, teasing, racial slurs),
Non-verbal (nasty looks, excluding on purpose)
Written/graphic – including cyber-bulling (emails, blogs, websites, text messages, or using other electronic means to inflict harm on someone)

What can I do?

To eliminate bullying, we need everyone’s help.

Talk to your child about bullying and encourage him or her to share concerns with you.
Recognize bullying and take action when you see it. It is important to help the child who is being bullied, the child who is witnessing the incident, and the child who is the bully.
Report suspected bullying to the school’s principal. Contact your school’s principal if you have questions or concerns about bullying, harassment or intimidation, want to report an incident, or think that a student is being bullied at school.

Who can report suspected bullying behavior?

What will happen if I report bullying?

Olweus Bullying Prevention Program

The Olweus Program (pronounced Ol-VAY-us) is a comprehensive approach that includes school wide, classroom, individual, and community components. The program is focused on long-term change that creates a safe and positive school climate.

It is designed and evaluated for use in elementary, middle, junior high and high schools (K-12). The program’s goals are to reduce and prevent bullying problems among schoolchildren and to improve peer relations at school.

The program has been found to reduce bullying among students, improve the social climate of classrooms, and reduce related antisocial behaviors, such as vandalism and truancy.

The Olweus Program has been implemented in more than a dozen countries around the world, and in thousands of schools in the United States. The OBPP aligns with many Common Core Standards.

Calvert County Public Schools has five schools trained in the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (Barstow ES, Calvert ES, Saint Leonard ES, Calvert MS, and Calvert HS) and is planning on training two additional schools each summer until all schools are trained as funds allow.

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