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Board hears report: eight bullying incidents since last meeting; Eisenhower phone episode under review
Summary
The district reported eight harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) incidents since the last meeting — six found and two unfounded — and board members discussed school reporting procedures and a possible cell-phone-related incident at Eisenhower during a musical performance.
The Freehold Township School District reported eight incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) since its last meeting; six were found to be founded and two were unfounded, a district official told the board.
The district uses a tracking system that records the purported root of an incident — including categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation and physical appearance — rather than the precise language used when an incident was reported, the presenter said. Each school is required to convene a school safety team twice a year to review the system data, evaluate patterns and recommend school-level remediation.
Board members raised a secondhand report of an incident at Eisenhower Middle School tied to a recent school musical, saying there may have been a phone in use. The board agreed to discuss the incident "offline" to gather more facts from school leadership and the building principal.
On policy and enforcement, the board described the district’s existing cell‑phone approach: elementary students keep phones powered off and in their backpacks; middle‑school students keep phones powered off and in lockers, and staff address observed violations by asking students to put phones away.
A board member referenced a state law that requires the district to develop an action plan for a student after three confirmed incidents in the same school year; the presenter said the district currently had no student who had reached that threshold this year.
Board members emphasized that reports should begin at the building level: "It should start with the building principal," one board member said, and that incidents should be reported by the person who experienced them rather than routed through the board.
District officials said the tracking system also records whether police were notified and other procedural elements of each case. The board did not take formal action on individual cases in public session; members said they would follow up with school leadership for any necessary next steps.
