Lake Washington School District recognizes that it has a responsibility to provide an educational environment that is free from all types of discrimination and harassment, including, but not limited to sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation.
What is harassment?
Harassment can take many forms and can include bullying, intimidation, slurs, comments, rumors, “put-downs,” jokes, innuendoes, unwelcome compliments, cartoons, pranks, and/or other verbal or physical conduct relating to an individual which:
- has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or learning environment;
- has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or education;
- has the purpose or effect of substantially disrupting the orderly operation of the school or workplace; or
- otherwise unreasonably affects an individual’s employment or educational opportunities.
What is bullying?
According to Dan Olweus, creator of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, “A person is said to be 'bullied' when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.”
This definition includes three important components:
- Bullying is aggressive behavior that involves unwanted, negative actions.
- Bullying involves a pattern of behavior repeated over time.
- Bullying involves an imbalance of power or strength.
Bullying can take many forms: verbal, physical, through social exclusion or isolation, spreading lies or false rumors, having money or other items stolen or damaged by the bully, being threatened or forced to do things by the bully, racial bullying, sexual bullying, cyberbullying (via cell phone or Internet).
What is Cyberbullying or “Sexting”?
Cyberbullying is similar to other types of bullying but takes place online and through text messages sent to cell phones. Cyber bullies can be classmates, online acquaintances, even someone anonymous, but most often cyber bullies know their victims. Cyberbullying is sometimes referred to as “snarking.” There are many types of cyberbullying:
- Flaming – or online fights
- Outing – revealing or threatening to reveal secrets
- Masquerading / Impersonation
- Exclusion / Group bullying
- Cyber-stalking
Most often, cyberbullying takes place because of the degree of anonymity that the Internet provides.
Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones – the word “sexting” is the combination of the words “sex” and “texting.” Often children will send nude or revealing photos of themselves to other children with whom they are in a relationship. However, when that relationship ends, the receiver of the photograph may decide to share these photos with others. This is illegal and, depending upon the circumstances, could lead to criminal charges against the individual sharing the photo.