Cyberbully In Schools

In today’s society the world is evolving and things are getting more complex. Due to this fact, school districts are having a challenging time updating the suitable and required code of conducts for the schools and students alike. The code of conducts are required to be updated more and more recently, because of the lack of protection towards the school and students. Rules in some district’s code of conducts do not have a suitable punishment for a student’s actions. For example, if the code of conduct is not updated or have rules for a certain action, the schools will not be able to do anything about what the student has done. Districts need to update the code of conduct for actions that happen online such as on social media and that happen

off campus involving the school’s students. When students perpetrate other students off campus the school can not interfere or will not know what to do in that situation if confronted if the code of conduct does not have any ruling on that course of action.

So if someone were to cyber bully another student off campus and the victim came to the school for help, the school can not do anything without a suitable code of conduct. A lot of schools now a days, because the advancement in technology and social media are having cyberbullying issues and not knowing how to handle them due to the out dated code of conduct. Many schools are now in a difficult position of having to respond to a mandate to have a cyberbullying policy. This cyberbullying policy would contain information on how and when to take action in cyberbullying incidents so making a cyberbullying policy would update and strengthen the code of conduct and protecting them from lawsuits. Some parents try to sue schools for just standing by as students coerce the parents child on social media forcing the victim to commit suicide. Schools have been forced to update the code of conduct after losing a case due to a victim’s parents suing the school for not doing

anything.
The Phoebe Prince case is a perfect example of a school not having an updated code of conduct or a cyberbullying policy.

Phoebe Prince was severely bullied on and off campus, both physically and cyberbullied. Phoebe Prince had faith in a guy and he basically used Pheobe so from that moment on she was bullied everyday at school getting pushed around, getting called a “slut” and a “hoe”, also getting hateful messages and people tweeting about her and posting inappropriate things about her while the school sat by and watched it all happen without doing nothing and the reason why was because the code of conduct had nothing about that issue and how to handle it. So Phoebe’s bullies had no consequences at all even though some individuals would say the bullies bullied Phoebe to death. Even after Phoebe committed suicide the bullies kept going and posting things about her, laughing at her death and someone even posted “mission accomplished”. Phoebe’s parents sued the school and won the case, thus the school finally updated the code of conduct so this type of thing doesn’t happen again to anyone at that school. Even after the lawsuit the bullies still didn’t receive any punishment at all. So the code of conducts consequences were also updated to benefit

everyone.
It is pretty hard to make and update a code of conduct, especially for social media because of the several different types of cyberbullying and the different types of severity levels for each type. The consequences also have to be just and suit the crime appropriately to the severity level. For example one type of cyberbully with minor and major severity levels is digital pile on, digital pile on can be as simple and minor as someone being bullied on a picture that was posted and an individual just comments an emoji and can be as major as commenting that the person should kill themselves or something hateful and threatening comments. Both of the individuals should not have the same punishment because one was just a minor comment while the other was major, so making a code of conduct is difficult because finding what exactly are major and minor offenses of cyberbullying and finding the correct punishment for both is not an easy task to do. Cyberbullying has a lot of different types of it that will need to be included in the code of conduct such as: the mentioned digital pile on, online harassment, outing, victim blaming, trolling, and exclusion. All types of cyberbullying have major and minor severities to each one and need different punishments for each one. All infractions must end with expulsion, because if not then students can keep doing the same thing over and over again with only getting whatever the present code of conduct says for example if the last step is a 3 day suspension and the student posted a very inappropriate picture or video of another student several times and only get a 3 day suspension, that isn’t a very appropriate punishment so the code of conduct must be updated to a more suitable punishment for the crime.
With a new code of conduct students will face a more just and severe punishment and consequences for their actions that will make the code of conduct simpler and more straightforward. Creating a code of conduct with just and accurate punishments and rules to each type of bullying and cyberbullying from the start will save a lot of time, money and not to mention save schools from lawsuits. By making an effective code of conduct the school protects itself and the students attending so getting it right and putting effort and thought into it is worth it and will benefit school districts in a long run. Also updating any out of date code of conducts as soon as possible will help with running a school smoothly and more efficient, by making changes and always following up with the students and the new technology will help improve the code of conduct and protect schools from lawsuits or anything worse that can occur. Always update the code of conduct to have just and suitable punishments for the student’s actions so the victims can also be protected. By keeping an effective code of conduct updated is a sign that the school actually cares about the students that attend it and that the students are priority. Keeping a close eye on the students’ lives at school is also a good way to keep the code of conduct updated, if a teacher sees something that is not in the code of conduct that individual that confront the district about it so it is added to the code of conduct to keep furthering the progress of this code of conduct and protecting the students.