No Bully Program

The No Bully organization has created a video highlighting the success and impact the No Bully program has had on our Village Community.  Click here to view this fantastic video.

We all belong. We are all significant. 
As we work, learn and play, we come together with compassion and respect.

Envisioning the Ideal Village Community

The No Bully Team wholeheartedly appreciates the participation of the many parents, teachers and staff who have contributed thus far to the creation of the above working social vision for our community.

The work does not stop there. As the opportunity makes itself available, Principal Stephanie and teachers will share the vision with our incoming principal over the next few weeks. The vision will also be shared with our kids in the early weeks of the 2013 school year to gather their thoughts.Does it get their thumbs up? What do they think the words mean and do they feel it describes the community they want? The discussion will also continue with all parents during the parent education sessions, which will center on No Bully education and will be held in the beginning of the new school year.

Where does this vision come from?


We all belong. We are all significant. The No Bully team drew these beginning words of the proposed vision statement directly from the teachings of Jane Nelsen, founder of the Positive Discipline philosophy. It is this philosophy, which guides how our children grow and learn in our community, that makes us unique among schools. A key concept behind all of Nelsen’s work is the understanding that belonging and significance in life are the primary goals of all people, especially children. What better way to start our vision than with the words we all do belong and are significant! And what a great new word for our kids to learn—significant!

As we work, learn and play, we come together with compassion and respect for each other. Taking from the several social vision sessions with parents, staff and teachers held over the last several weeks and after testing of a preliminary draft vision, the No Bully Team coalesced the many inspirational ideas and themes into this secondary, but equally meaningful part of the vision.

So, let me step back for a moment and review where we have come thus far…

What is bullying and why the effort to understand it?


Bullying occurs when a student, or group of students, repeatedly targets a less powerful student. It is different from conflict where two or more students of equal power disagree. Conflict can become bullying when one of the students intimidates or dominates the other student through bullying behaviors—physical, verbal, relational or cyber bullying.

At Village, teachers, parents and students alike have learned many of the skills of effective conflict resolution. We are now learning that it is a mistake to use conflict resolution to resolve bullying situations. We now understand that in bullying situations there is too great a power imbalance for the target to find their voice. Although we would like to think our school environment is free of bullying behaviors, we know it is absolutely not. We need effective and proactive ways of addressing this hurtful behavior. Furthermore, Seth’s Law, which took effect in California on July 1, 2012, requires schools to put in place an effective system for responding to student bullying and to publish this as a written anti-bullying policy. Village has selected to adopt the No Bully System, developed in San Francisco, to help us develop that policy. Their philosophical approach is very much reflective of our Positive Discipline model and provides our school with an effective tool called Solution Teams to address bullying behaviors.

How does a school prevent bullying and why No Bully?


Current thinking no longer sees bullying as simply an issue between the target, the bully, and any bully followers. According to No Bully research, bullying is first made possible and then perpetuated within the context of the student peer group. It is impacted positively or negatively by the wider school culture as defined by the parents, teachers and administrators. To effectively prevent bullying we need to invest in culture change. Because bullying is a systematic problem, there is no single action that will stop it. However, schools which combine the universal actions that promote a culture of acceptance (bullying prevention) with the indicated actions to resolve any incidents (bullying response) achieve considerable progress toward becoming bully-free.

Having a strong vision statement, which guides the interactions between all members of a school, adult and child alike, is the foundation of effective bullying prevention. Following cultural change driven by a strong vision statement are effective interventions to resolve any incidents of bullying that still occur. The No Bully program offers a highly effective response model that aligns with Positive Discipline—the Solution Team approach. Current research reveals that children—even those who bully—are capable of empathy and kindness when their school creates the conditions that support those behaviors. The No Bully Solution Team approach leverages student empathy as the central motive force in ending the bullying of their peers. It requires kids who bully to take responsibility for ending their behavior instead of, for example, simply removing them from campus.

What does a school vision have to do with bullying?


The process of envisioning the ideal community is a key step to becoming a bully-free community. Note that last year and prior to our work with No Bully, parents and teachers began working to this end by establishing our MMS, our Village values of: Model respect; Make good choices; and Solve problems. Our MMS have been and will continue to be a wonderful tool as we work with children in the classroom, during recess, and on field trips.

The No Bully program has encouraged us to take these values one step further towards describing an overarching vision for the community we want to be, the Village we desire for all adults and children. The shared vision does not mean that we are that community or even that we will actually get there. It is instead similar to the North Star. When traveling the North Star guides us, but we never actually reach it. The vision gives us a sense of direction and leads us to where we want to be.

When we put action behind the vision we get closer to reaching our goal. Along with a strong bullying intervention program, our Village MMS are important action steps in getting to that vision and will still largely be the tool adults use with kids to guide them to positive behavior. As the kids internalize more of the overall vision, our dialog with them in and out of the classroom can be expanded beyond the MMS to include the strong Positive Discipline concept that we all want to belong and be significant and the value of compassion and respect guiding how we interact each other.

What were some of the vision ideas?


During the visioning sessions held in early May with parents, teachers and staff, we asked ourselves to imagine the ideal caring school environment and to share our ideas. The following were some of the major themes that came from these sessions:

• Our power comes from our hearts.
• We treat each other as we would like to be treated.
• We work WITH each other for positive change.
• We appreciate and celebrate our differences.
• We have complete trust in each other with our feelings and our bodies.
• As we work together, we come from a place of trust.
• Children and adults alike thrive in our community and stand up for kindness.
• We look for the good in each other. 
• Everyone is included.
• We all love being at Village!

With the help of many, the No Bully Team has tried to capture the sentiment of these many inspiring themes into a single vision for our community, that in time will be used on Village letterhead and other communications, will be displayed on campus and in our classrooms, and will guide many discussions about creating an even kinder Village community.

What are some next steps?


Other steps in the process include No Bully developing an interim set of policy and procedures with us over the next few months. These will be further developed with Village’s new principal in the new school year. Teachers Aisling and Shannon will work on adding social emotional learning curriculum regarding bullying prevention and intervention to all classrooms and synchronizing the teachers’ discussions with kids throughout the year and in a sustained way for years to come. In the future, monthly reporting on the Solution Team process will be contributed to the newsletter as well.
Change takes time and the small but meaningful acts we make along the way tell us if we are moving in the right direction. Please do not hesitate to come talk to any one of us on the No Bully Team about any aspect of the process or program.

Each one of us can be a major part of putting our vision into action!