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Alisal Union outlines bullying-prevention strategy; district identifies 60 referrals, 15% confirmed as bullying
Summary
District director of pupil personnel services presented the district's anti-bullying policy, prevention programs and referral data, saying 60 coordination-of-services referrals were filed for bullying and roughly 15% were confirmed after follow-up. Board members asked about grade-level patterns and which interventions appear to work.
Diana Garcia, director of pupil personnel services for the Alisal Union School District, told the Board of Trustees on Tuesday night the district has a multi-tiered bullying-prevention program that combines policy, site wellness teams and outside partners.
Garcia said the district's board policy on bullying (Policy 5131.2, adopted Feb. 22, 2023) guides responses and that coordination-of-services referrals are the district's first step for students who need help. "Bullying is aggressive behavior ... a power imbalance, repetitive behavior," Garcia told the board.
Why it matters: district staff said prevention and early intervention reduce harm to students, and the board pressed for clarity about where bullying shows up and which programs are most effective.
Key facts and figures: Garcia reported that, as of May 3, the district had several hundred coordination-of-services referrals; across the dataset she cited 60 referrals identified specifically as bullying (about 6.6% of referrals) and said roughly 15% of those referrals were confirmed as bullying after counselor and social-work review. She told trustees that fifth grade shows the highest incidence in the district's data.
What the district is doing: Garcia outlined site-level wellness teams that include principals or assistant principals, counselors, district social workers, mindful-life coaches (at six schools), wellness coaches, school counselors and partners such as Harmony at Home and Monterey County Behavioral Health. Programs and practices named in the presentation included Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), restorative practices, anonymous reporting (locked suggestion boxes at sites), targeted healing-support groups (referred to locally as Jove Nobile or similar culturally based groups), and classroom social-emotional learning lessons.
Board questions and staff responses: Trustee Lipas Barrera and others asked which interventions are producing measurable results. Garcia said the combination of programs has yielded observable improvements, highlighting restorative-circle work and the Harmony at Home curriculum as especially effective for the district's upper-elementary students. When asked about chronic absenteeism linked to bullying, Garcia said social workers investigate those cases but that, to date, absences have more often been associated with general disengagement than confirmed bullying.
Context and next steps: trustees encouraged continued outreach to families and urged staff to keep expanding training for counselors and wellness staff. Garcia said the district will continue to expand training in restorative practices and maintain anonymous reporting and parent education sessions.
Ending: Board members thanked Garcia for the report and said they would monitor implementation and training next school year.
