BCS News reports that State Representative Frank Burns from Pennsylvania proposes to introduce legislation which would see Parents of habitual Bullying children paying up to $750 for their child's antisocial behavior. For the first instance of bullying, school officials would be required to notify the bullying child's parents and advise how the situation had been handled by the school. Parents would be asked to attend a bullying resolution meeting and take an anti-bullying class for their child's second offense. Parents would automatically receive a court order with a $500 fine for their child's third offense.
Parents would be fined $750 for each-and-every offense after the third incident.
Many parents refuse to accept the truth
A huge problem with school bullying is that parents simply refuse to believe that their child could be a bully, said Burns. They don't accept that their child could do such a terrible thing. Burn's bullying proposal will also cover cyber-bullying, which is currently a crime in Pennsylvania.
Proposed legislation to crack down on bullying and the failure to report bullying
Frank Burns plans to introduce three pieces of legislation. The first is to create a system within the Department of Education allowing people to anonymously report incidents of bullying. The second is to penalize educators should they fail to report such incidents, by suspending them or with some other type of disciplinary action.
The third proposal is for schools to track and report all incidents of bullying in real-time data.
Frank Burns has visited many schools within his own district and spoken to students about harassing behavior; at the same time urging students to sign an anti-bullying pledge.
Parental accountability is a big factor when it comes to bullying
Statistics on bullying are shocking and scary. Over 24 million children between the ages of 12 and 18 were surveyed in 2011, with a whopping 28 percent of students reporting they were bullied. The disturbing behavior ranged from insults, name-calling, being threatened with harm, to being pushed and shoved, and so on.
With cyber-bullying, approximately 2.2 million children said they have been threatened online. These are scary statistics, and it's this dangerous behavior that Frank Burns is working hard to put an end to.
Unfortunately, Burns' proposal will face some objections, with some stating that parents of a bullied child can already sue the family of the bullying child. Others question whether the new proposal would be constitutional, legal, or even practical.
Nine Republicans and 16 Democrats have already signed on to co-sponsor his three bills.
