By South Australia Department of Education (SA)

This strategy has been developed by the Education Department through the South Australian Bullying Prevention Coalition, which includes Catholic and Independent school sectors, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, government departments and leading bullying prevention researchers.

Actions within the school gates include:

• strengthening bully prevention policy requirements and compliance measures in schools

• providing evidence-based curriculum content for children to learn about bullying, cyberbullying and online safety

• a targeted expansion of the PEACE Pack program based on the findings of the pilot

• providing all teachers with access to foundational training about supporting students who are at higher risk of bullying

• piloting the Friendly Schools program across all public schools in the Greater Gawler partnership

• providing new resources and training for teachers, students and families about bullying; and

• a partnership with the Youth Affairs Council of South Australia to support student-led bullying prevention initiatives in schools.

Actions beyond the school gates include:

• piloting a community recreation program in the City of Playford council area, strengthening children’s involvement in community programs

• an initiative that will see young people advise decision makers and urban planners about the establishment of safe child and youth-oriented spaces; and

• a comprehensive consultation process across the major sporting codes, led by the Commissioner for Children and Young People, to develop child-designed bullying prevention initiatives.

Adelaide: Government of South Australia 2019. 32p.

By Queensland Audit Office

This report examines whether the Queensland Department of Education’s (the department) strategies are effective in protecting students from bullying. The audit specifically focused on the role of the Department of Education in setting the strategic direction, providing support, and monitoring the implementation of bullying prevention initiatives across Queensland state schools.

The audit involved site visits to five schools, analysis of student behaviour data, and consultation with stakeholders including parents, teachers, principals, and peak bodies.

Key findings

• The department’s strategies and procedures are effectively designed in line with better practice research on bullying, and these provide its schools with an evidence-based approach to manage bullying on a day-to-day basis. However, the department could be more explicit and better communicate how its strategies are intended to address bullying.

• The strategies lack specific objectives, targets, and measures for monitoring progress.

• Communication of school codes of conduct could be improved. The codes of conduct are lengthy and often omit mandatory elements, such as details about staff training and reporting thresholds.

• Data collection on students who experience bullying is limited, hindering the department's understanding of the extent and impact of bullying and its ability to provide targeted support.

Recommendations for the department

1. Clearly document its approach to bullying.

2. Support more effective communication of schools' codes of conduct.

3. Enhance data collection to include information on students who experience bullying, including cyberbullying.

4. Enhance monitoring of student bullying by: collecting and analysing information on experiences of bullying, establishing processes for monitoring school implementation of bullying policies, and evaluating the effectiveness of its policies and resources.

5. Review the Parent and Community Engagement framework to provide specific guidance on engaging parents on complex policy issues such as bullying.

6. Provide readily available resources for school staff on preventing and responding to bullying behaviour. 

 Report 6: 2024–25

Brisbane: The State of Queensland (Queensland Audit Office). 2024. 48p.

By Jane Arnold Lincove, Catherine Mata & Kalena Cortes

This research analyzes the implementation of a school suspension ban in Maryland to investigate whether a top-down state-initiated ban on suspensions in early primary grades can influence school behavior regarding school discipline. Beginning in the fall of 2017, the State of Maryland banned the use of out-of-school suspensions for grades PK-2, unless a student posed an "imminent threat" to staff or students. This research investigates (1) what was the effect of the ban on discipline outcomes for students in both treated grades and upper elementary grades not subject to the ban? (2) did schools bypass the ban by coding more events as threatening or increasing the use of in-school suspensions? and (3) were there differential effects for students in groups that are historically suspended more often? Using a comparative interrupted time series strategy, we find that the ban is associated with a substantial reduction in, but not a total elimination of, out-of-school suspensions for targeted grades without substitution of in-school suspensions. Disproportionalities by race and other characteristics remain after the ban. Grades not subject to the ban experienced few effects, suggesting the ban did not trigger a schoolwide response that reduced exclusionary discipline.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. 65p.

By Tony Fabelo, Michael D. Thompson, Martha Plotkin, Dottie Carmichael, Miner P. Marchbanks III, and Eric A. Booth

This report describes the results of an extraordinary analysis of millions of school and juvenile justice records in Texas. It was conducted to improve policymakers’ understanding of who is suspended and expelled from public secondary schools, and the impact of those removals on students’ academic performance and juvenile justice system involvement. Like other states, school suspensions—and, to a lesser degree, expulsions—have become relatively common in Texas. For this reason and because Texas has the second largest public school system in the nation (where nonwhite children make up nearly two-thirds of the student population), this study’s findings have significance for—and relevance to—states across the country. Several aspects of the study make it groundbreaking. First, the research team did not rely on a sample of students, but instead examined individual school records and school campus data pertaining to all seventh-grade public school students in Texas in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Second, the analysis of each grade’s student records covered at least a six-year period, creating a statewide longitudinal study. Third, access to the state juvenile justice database allowed the researchers to learn about the school disciplinary history of youth who had juvenile records. Fourth, the study group size and rich datasets from the education and juvenile justice systems made it possible to conduct multivariate analyses. Using this approach, the researchers could control for more than 80 variables, effectively isolating the impact that independent factors had on the likelihood of a student’s being suspended and expelled, and on the relationship between these disciplinary actions and a student’s academic performance or juvenile justice involvement.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2011. 124p.