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Committee backs bill to require parent notification for serious bullying incidents
Summary
The Senate Education Committee voted to recommend House Bill 44 to the floor, a bill that would require schools to notify parents of both the alleged bully and the victim when a bullying incident leads to suspension and allow districts to notify law enforcement when conduct may be criminal.
The Senate Education Committee on an undisclosed February date voted to send House Bill 44 to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation. The bill, presented by Representative Chris Mathias, would require school districts to notify parents of both the alleged bully and the victim when a bullying incident is "serious," defined in the bill as an incident that results in suspension. The measure also allows school staff to notify law enforcement when they judge an incident may violate criminal law.
Representative Chris Mathias, the bill's sponsor, said the measure is aimed at reducing youth suicide by ensuring parents are notified when students are most vulnerable. "When serious incidents of bullying occur, we are acknowledging that that's when kids are most vulnerable in many instances to suicide," Mathias told the committee.
Mathias said the bill is narrower than a previous proposal (House Bill 539) that failed last year because it required notification for all bullying incidents and specified the types of information schools must send. "This just says that such incident shall be reported to the families," he said, adding the bill does not prescribe the content of the notice.
Committee members questioned how the bill interacts with existing student privacy practices and executive-session handling of disciplinary matters. Senator Zito asked how administrators would notify law enforcement without violating confidentiality practices for students. Mathias replied the bill assigns the notification duty to the building administrator and said existing parental-rights and mandatory-reporter laws provide safeguards and due-process mechanisms. "We also have a law on the books of parental rights and education law that says, if you are a school and you are going to talk to a student or law enforcement about a student, you have to get parental permission first," Mathias said.
Other senators described the bill as a legislative floor of expectation to standardize practice across districts. Senator Ward Engelking, a co-sponsor of earlier anti-bullying legislation, said he supported the measure and that notification is not always done consistently at the district level. Senator Carlson and others pressed whether districts already notify parents for suspensions; Mathias said many do, but the bill would ensure all districts meet that baseline.
The committee recorded the motion to send House Bill 44 to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation; the motion was seconded and carried.
The bill retains local-district roles for disciplinary processes and does not mandate the specific text or information to be delivered to families; it requires districts to have a procedure that complies with state and federal privacy laws and to notify law enforcement in instances that may be criminal, using the discretion language "may" for law-enforcement notification.
Votes at a glance: the committee voted to recommend House Bill 44 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation; the transcript records the motion, a second, and that the motion "carries." The transcript does not give a roll-call tally.
