The Rockaway Township Board of Education heard the district’s annual New Jersey Department of Education self-assessment under the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act and a school-by-school summary of investigations and scores.

Anita West, director of human resources and the district’s anti-bullying coordinator, told the board that each building’s safety team completed the state self-assessment and that the completed self-assessments are publicly posted after the state approves the district’s submission. “The self assessment is an in-house document the safety teams complete each year,” West said. She described the document’s scoring structure and reported the number of investigations and confirmed HIB (harassment, intimidation or bullying) findings by school.

Reported counts West cited (2024–25 school year, as presented)
- Birchwood School: 4 investigations, 1 confirmed; self-assessment score 76 of 78.
- Dwyer School: 2 investigations, 1 confirmed; self-assessment score 76 of 78.
- Dennis B. O’Brien: 30 investigations, 17 confirmed; preliminary determination used 77 times; score 75 of 78.
- Catherine D. Malone: 1 investigation, 0 confirmed; score 76 of 78.
- Stony Brook: 2 investigations, 0 confirmed; score 75 of 78.
- Copeland (referred to as Copeland Middle School in presentation): 70 investigations, 21 confirmed; score 74 of 78.

West said the self-assessment also reports on how many times principals used “principal discretion” under the statute’s preliminary determination rules; she explained that principal discretion is applied when a complaint does not, on its face, allege one of the statutory HIB characteristics and therefore does not meet the test’s legal threshold.

Board questions and staff response
Board members asked whether the district’s relatively lower scores in some assessment elements reflected gaps in training or understanding of the policy. West said the district conducts training at convocation and described additional training this year: “We attended a state training and invited counselors and principals. That training helped; the counselors reported more clarity,” she said. West added that administrators and the anti-bullying specialist meet annually and that the schools are updating documentation and training to reduce uncertainty about what triggers an HIB investigation.

West closed by outlining the procedure: schools report investigations, the district posts the self-assessment once the state assigns official scores, and parents can submit an incident form found on the district website.

Why it matters: the self-assessment is the district’s formal accounting of how it enforces the anti-bullying law and trains staff; it is publicly posted after state review. The board did not take a vote on the report; members asked follow-up questions about continued training for staff and consistency in preliminary determinations.