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.