[Someone1234]

Let me provide a common hypothetical:

- A student is being bullied. This bullying is happening using social media and or text messages. These messages are being sent at various times pseudo-anonymously but there's strong reason to know who it is.

Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this? Is it the police? Using what law/powers? Are social workers empowered? We're clearly not ok with the school doing it.

So is bullying that happens outside of school hours just a free-for-all? I'm genuinely asking. It is fine if everyone agrees that schools shouldn't and that it is authoritarian to do so, but then who exactly is the authority? If police are, then when the police slap handcuffs on a K-12 kid, everyone loses their mind about that too and asks "why is this a police matter?!" "Why are we criminalizing young people?!"

I'm not saying I have all the answers: Because I absolutely do not. But I am saying people need to think about the bigger picture about how this works and who is responsible for what.

[naet]

There was a court case that a family member of mine was involved in as a legal assistant, where a local high school found out a group of three kids had been operating an inappropriate instagram account targeting other students (all black) with things like photoshopped nooses around their necks, photoshopping pictures of the students into monkeys, and lots of horrible comments etc. Obviously this made the targeted students feel extremely unsafe with an anonymous account posting their photos online in this somewhat threatening way. Eventually somehow it came out who was behind the account and they were all removed from the school.

The case was about one of the expelled students, their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school. I can't remember if they won the case or not, but the issue is complicated. When there is an issue between two students who only know each other from school, it can become a school issue whether it originated there or not.

[panda88888]

> their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school

I think the alternatives should be criminal record or student record.

[FireBeyond]

> their family lawyer arguing that they shouldn't have this incident on their student record because it occurred outside of school

"The only reason you know most of the people you did this to is... drum roll... because you are at the same school"

[Waterluvian]

Good point. It’s indeed weird that there’s some delineation line between your school permanent record and your life permanent record.

[mlyle]

> It’s indeed weird that there’s some delineation line between your school permanent record and your life permanent record.

It's a good thing.

Student mental health is pretty bad these days. Part of it is that everything is so high stakes: society tells kids any little slip up-- academic or behavioral-- will affect them forever.

It's good that ordinary missteps can go away.

[em-bee]

in germany only severe crimes get on the permanent record. everything else will be removed after a few years. there is a separate record for youth crimes which is not included in your criminal record and is removed at age 24 if you didn't commit a severe crime.

whether something happens inside or outside school should have no bearing on how it is treated. when it comes to messaging, a warrant should be needed either way.

[mlyle]

> in germany only severe crimes get on the permanent record. everything else will be removed after a few years. there is a separate record for youth crimes which is not included in your criminal record and is removed at age 24 if you didn't commit a severe crime.

This is true of most states, though the fact that your juvenile record was sealed and expunged may itself be a record.

[tomrod]

> Who, exactly, is the authority who we expect to look into this?

Parents, typically?

Police once it becomes harassment or assault (or threat of).

[djbusby]

Parents are not reliable. It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you".

[vorpalhex]

Then it's time to escalate.

If the "speaking softly" isn't working, it's time for the stick.

My aunt had an exchange student in her care. At some point there was an altercation and a boy at school slapped the (female) exchange student.

School didn't want to do anything about it, was hemming and hawing.

So my aunt phoned the boys mother and explained the situation - and was met with a "well I can't do anything".

My aunt simply replied "Well I can have her at the police station this afternoon and file a report, with photos of her bruises. After that I'm going to call my lawyer."

Amazingly, the parent of the troublesome student suddenly found the ability to do something!

Speaking softly only works of you're willing to use the stick.

[puffoflogic]

This is not a story I would tell online. When your aunt threatened to go to the police and then failed to follow through, it may have become extortion. You can threaten to sue; you can actually go to the police; you can even tell someone you're going to the police; but what you cannot do is merely threaten to go to the police.

[arcastroe]

"Send me $10,000 or I will go to the police to report past bullying of my child" is extortion. "Stop future bullying or I will go to the police to report said bullying" is not extortion. IANAL.

[tomrod]

Extortion: the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

If I squint my eyes I can sort of see what you're getting at. But on the flip side, this aunt also called the parent to make sure their duty was done. So it would be hard to claim "discipline your child, please, else I will need to file a police report to stop your child's harassment" is extortion.

[mlyle]

I agree this is probably not extortion, but people step close to this line and have been surprised by prosecution or litigation. e.g. pay for the damages or I'm going to the police...

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's an unpleasant experience asking another parent to tell their kid to stop bullying your kid...and then being told "fuck you"

Then police.

[clcaev]

> Then the police.

In some regions, this is a bit unrealistic.

I grew up in a neighborhood where the bully's dad was the police captain. The bully would target brown kids and property of their parents (e.g. M80 down the chimney, among other atrocities). Everyone in town new the son acted with impunity. Kids our age knew it was worse: the dad actively encouraged his son, and gave him the M80s. No one would talk about it in public, less they be targeted as well.

[tomrod]

Everyone is accountable to someone. Escalate where needed.

[mlyle]

> > I grew up in a neighborhood where the bully's dad was the police captain.

> Everyone is accountable to someone. Escalate where needed.

Frankly, this isn't really true-- and shows our immense privilege that we can often act with this assumption and have it come true. Most people don't have this experience.

And especially a couple decades ago this was much less true for the type of circumstances we're discussing.

[rdtwo]

That may be true but you need to somehow be higher on the social ladder than the assailant. Good luck if you are getting harassed by police to get them to stop you need to have a direct line to the mayor or at least city council.

[imapeopleperson]

Bullying is harassment

[tomrod]

> https://www.stopbullying.gov/

Sometimes overlaps (probably often)

But bullying can also just be being a jerk, it doesn't always fall under harassment laws.

[vorpalhex]

The school is not fit to play the role of police. Outside of school grounds they have no power.

So if the issue is outside school, then the school is not the authority.

Is it bullying as in being mean or is it threats of violence? One of those is a crime that you can bring to police, the other is why you have a block button.

[josephcsible]

Consider a slightly modified hypothetical: What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)? If your answer is anything but the victim's school, then that answer applies to your original hypothetical too. If your answer is the victim's school, then you're saying that public schools can search anyone's phones (rather than just their own students' phones, which was bad enough) without a warrant just because they're accused of bullying one of their students.

[mlyle]

> What if the bully were homeschooled or a high school dropout (with the victim still in public school)?

Pure cyberbullying can be pretty bad, but it's even worse when they're in your school, and you're forced to interact with them in that regard... and they can mess with you with no oversight outside school (and deniably).

For the most part, schools would rather not try and adjudicate things that happen outside school. But the reasonable interpretation of events between students, and the most reliable remedies, can be very different based on context from outside school.

[mikkergp]

If the school suspected bullying why wouldn’t they get the parents involved and ask them to look through the phone. I mean this isn’t a case where a kid came to a teacher and asked them for help right? I understand the case of a school helping a student without a parents consent if the student initiated the interaction, it seems unreasonable if it’s the other way around.

[mlyle]

It's really hard, right?

Courts have held that schools have a lower threshold to justify a search, due to the need to maintain a safe environment that is conducive to learning.

Schools don't really want to be involved in the outside-school life of their students. But what happens on phones, etc, between students outside school hours absolutely affects the learning environment and how events at school should be interpreted.

[politician]

What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park? Would that not meet the vague “standard” of affecting the learning environment at the school? What about what happens in the home? Do they have jurisdiction there too?

Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

[mlyle]

> What about the things that happen between children outside their homes, like at a neighborhood park?

I absolutely think it's relevant whether student A punched student B in the face at the park yesterday, when they're dealing with a dispute where student A seems to have done something that's in a grey area to student B. "Playful" jostling that student B doesn't appreciate is very different with the context of the prior punch in the face.

Of course, the problem schools face is that objective facts about what's happened between students-- in or out of school-- are frequently not known.

> Maybe schools should mind their own business instead of becoming totalitarian states that use permissive precedents to dig into everyone’s business.

Someone1234 posed some good questions above. I don't have all the answers.

I endured nearly a decade of terrible bullying because it was literally no one's business, though. Would not recommend.

[politician]

> Of course, the problem schools face is that objective facts about what's happened between students-- in or out of school-- are frequently not known.

That's right, but the solution is not to empower schools to operate their own investigation departments so that they can enforce their own laws on our children through a governance system best described as a Medieval lordship. There must be limits on their authority.

For children in abusive home environments, schools ought to refer these cases to the State. For children involved in bullying relationships, schools ought to refer these cases to the State. There are more adequate checks and balances on the actions of State than within the unelected fiat systems of governance in public schools. State and local governments can direct the appropriate responses of social workers and law enforcement. There is no rationale for protecting violent bullies from the law by adjudicating their behavior within the nonstandard and arbitrary discipline systems of schools.

Schools are not law enforcement and have powerful incentives to act capriciously to keep production moving: as you shared - they didn't look out for you and they didn't stop your bully.

[mlyle]

> For children involved in bullying relationships, schools ought to refer these cases to the State.

The legal system is a really blunt tool to deal with things like this, and doesn't have the capacity to investigate problems like this either.

And we're pretty clearly not just talking about "violent" bullies, but often those with behavior that may be just barely on the side of legality. But not all legal behavior is (or should be) tolerated in a school community.

> There must be limits on their authority.

There are. The Fourth Amendment still applies, but courts have chosen a slightly more permissive standard for school administrators than police officers in view of in loco parentis and the needs of the school environment.

[politician]

> There are. The Fourth Amendment still applies, but courts have chosen a slightly more permissive standard for school administrators than police officers in view of in loco parentis and the needs of the school environment.

School officials can be representatives of the State in one moment and in loco parentis in the next. Operating as a chimera is not an appropriate or respectful way to deal with anyone, especially children. It's telling that the principal use case of in loco parentis is schools - maybe it's time for that to end universally as it ended in higher education.

[philipwhiuk]

You make the parents legally responsible for the actions of the child and then you send the police after the parents.

[blooalien]

That's exactly how things worked when I was a child. And parents did not hesitate to right properly "whup that brat's a**" ("that brat" being whichever child had caused a problem bad enough to involve police somehow) when police came knockin' at the door with a warning to the parents to the effect of "Do your job as a parent, or legal action may become necessary."