Neighbors for Equality Launches New Push in Calling for Updated Policies in Cleveland County Schools

On June 11, Neighbors for Equality (NFE) put forth action for Cleveland County Schools (CCS) to update their School Board policies to protect vulnerable populations, such as the LGBTQ community. Many NFE volunteers pressed for action on behalf of CCS to build safer learning environments for students and employees. NFE received responses from two school board members (Kathy Falls and Dr. Jack Hamrick), Superintendent Dr. Bruce Boyles, and Director of Administrative Services Dr. Stephen Fisher. The School Violence Prevention Act (2009) advocated for terms including “sexual orientation” and “gender identification” to be included in school board policies. Dr. Fisher noted that Policy 4415 included the language from that act; however, NFE believes that CCS needs to do much more in regard to policy to protect LGBTQ students, as well as other vulnerable populations noted in the School Violence Prevention Act.

The School Violence Prevention Act states: “Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.”

While this language is included in Policy 4415, CCS needs to update many more of its policies. Furthermore, some policies explicitly mention bullying and harassment policies (4410, 5125, and 5180), but they have not been updated to include the populations that the School Violence Prevention Act includes. Additionally, CCS could update many other policies to help create a safer educational environment. As concerned people, NFE and its members will not give up the fight to build safer schools in North Carolina.

Following the passage of NC Amendment One, Neighbors for Equality is concerned with the safety of the youth in our communities and is calling for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the non-discrimination policies of local school systems – including Cleveland County Schools.

The bulleted list below easily outlines why particular policies need to be updated.

The letter below outlines our concerns with policies that do not protect all students. This particular letter focuses on the policies that directly connect to “harassing” policies.  We encourage our Neighbors for Equality supporters to use this letter to call on Cleveland County schools’ officials to add sexual orientation and gender identity to non-discrimination, anti-harassment, and bullying policies immediately. All students deserve equal protection and support. Please join us in this action.

Please contact Dr. Bruce Boyles, Superintendent – bboyles@clevelandcountyschools.org, Dr. Stephen Fisher, Director of Administrative Services – srfisher@clevelandcountyschools.org , and the Cleveland County Board of Education – ccsboe@clevelandcountyschools.org. A sample email subject line is “More Concerns about Safety in Cleveland County Schools.”

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Informational List on Necessary Policy Updates

Policies That Should be Updated in Regard to the School Violence Prevention Act

1. Cleveland County Board Policy 4410 “Harassment”

• What It States: “The Cleveland County Board of Education is committed to providing a nondiscriminatory environment that is conducive to learning. To this end, the board specifically prohibits harassment on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, national origin or disability. This policy is in addition to the board’s Sexual Harassment policy.”
• Why It Needs to Change: The School Violence Prevention Act requires the Cleveland County Board of Education to “adopt a policy prohibiting bullying and harassing behavior as required by the act.” Without updating policies, the Cleveland County Board of Education shows a lack of consistency, suggesting that there is little definition of which vulnerable populations are actually protected from harassment.
• What It Needs: To include the language from the School Violence Prevention Act: “race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.”

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Sample Email to School Officials

Dear School Official,

I appreciate your dedication to providing a safe learning environment for our county’s schools. Neighbors for Equality (NFE) has read the Cleveland County School Board Policy 4415 in depth, and NFE has noted the inclusion of language from the School Violence Prevention Act. I, like NFE, am concerned that the Cleveland County Board of Education’s policies have been not updated across the board in regard to all of the vulnerable populations that the School Violence Prevention Act includes. Updating all policies helps ensure that students and school employees understand what bullying and harassment includes; it also demonstrates that the Cleveland County Board of Education cares about vulnerable populations, such as the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans*-Queer (LGBTQ) community, and these students and school employees will feel that they have the protections that they deserve when they walk into the classroom. I appreciate your time and willingness to engage in dialogue with me to help build safer schools.

The School Violence Prevention Act states: “Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.” While I certainly applaud the efforts of the Cleveland County Board of Education to include this language in Policy 4415, much more work needs to be done to create a safe school environment. Additionally, if Policy 4415 includes this explicit language, then other policies relating to bullying and harassment should also include this language.

Cleveland County Board Policy 4410 “Harassment” has not been updated since 2004 and reads: “The Cleveland County Board of Education is committed to providing a nondiscriminatory environment that is conducive to learning. To this end, the board specifically prohibits harassment on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, national origin or disability. This policy is in addition to the board’s Sexual Harassment policy.” The School Violence Prevention Act requires the Cleveland County Board of Education to “adopt a policy prohibiting bullying and harassing behavior as required by the act.” While the Board has adopted a policy, it has not updated its student harassment policy, a policy which should be updated since the School Violence Prevention Act explicitly deals with harassment. Without updating policies, the Cleveland County Board of Education shows a lack of consistency, suggesting that there is little definition of which vulnerable populations are actually protected from harassment.

In building safer educational environments, the School Violence Prevention Act also requires for school employees to feel safe. The importance of school employees’ safety is explicitly noted in the School Violence Prevention Act: “No student or school employee shall be subjected to bullying or harassing behavior by school employees or students.” Employees should not have to endure “bullying or harassing behavior,” and, because of this wonderful inclusion, several policies should be updated in regard to personnel. Policy 5125 “Harassment” is cross-listed with Policy 4410, the student policy on harassment, and also reads that “the Cleveland County Board of Education is committed to providing a nondiscriminatory environment that is conducive to learning. To this end, the board specifically prohibits harassment on the basis of race, religion, sex, ethnicity, national origin or disability.” Because this policy pertains to school employees’ harassment and the School Violence Prevention Act explicitly references school employees’ safety from harassment by students and other school employees, Policy 5125 should be updated to promote a safe learning environment and include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Policy 5180 “Internet Acceptable Use by Employees” includes a section on harassment: “Harassment includes, but is not limited to, slurs, comments, jokes, innuendoes, unwelcome compliments, cartoons, visual depictions, pranks, or verbal conduct relating to an individual that (1) have the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment; (2) have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work or school performance, or (3) interfere with school operations.” This policy explicitly references “harassment,” with the result that this policy should be updated to include the School Violence Prevention Act’s clarification of harassment issues: “Harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived differentiating characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, socioeconomic status, academic status, gender identity, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, developmental, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.” Electronic harassment is a serious matter which we must work to eliminate in our school systems, and we must explicitly include this language to clarify what harassing behavior is in this policy.

If everything is updated, students will at least be aware that harassment against a student’s sexual orientation and gender identity is not acceptable. Students will know that there will be consequences for bullying and harassing other students or employees because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Also, LGBTQ individuals would know that the Board of Education cares for their wellbeing enough to acknowledge that they are “potential target(s)” since they are part of a marginalized group that often suffers discriminatory harassment and bullying.

While I applaud the Cleveland County Board of Education for implementing Policy 4415, as is legally required, I do think the Cleveland County Board of Education needs to update its other policies on bullying and harassment to explicitly include these marginalized populations that the School Violence Prevention Act protects. Furthermore many more improvements could be made with policy updates in order to create a consistent vision of what a nondiscriminatory learning environment looks like in our schools. For these reasons, I look forward to continue having a dialogue with you about these updates in our schools. I look forward to working with you to make sure our LGBTQ students feel safe when they attend school and know that the Board of Education does care about them.

Sincerely,

Your Name