North Brunswick reports drop in reported school violence, outlines trainings and restorative steps

The North Brunswick Township Board of Education received the district's annual violence and vandalism report on July 30, with administrators saying reported harassment, intimidation and bullying incidents fell from 153 in the prior reporting period to 93 in the most recent Jan. 1'June 30 window. Dr. Zakowski opened the presentations and turned the report over to Miss Kea, the district's HIB reporter.

Miss Kea said the district is required by state rules to report incidents publicly and that staff use the data to guide prevention work. "We can't get better if we don't report and understand where the numbers are going," she said, describing the decline as the result of multiple efforts including increased trainings, restorative practices and school-level policies.

Administrators provided a school-level breakdown for the full school year: one confirmed incident at an elementary school, Lynwood reported 10, the middle school eight and the high school 19, for a total of 37 confirmed incidents in the full year (15 fewer than the prior year). Miss Kea said other incident categories that lead to removals also decreased districtwide and that the district completed roughly 50 more trainings last year compared with the previous year.

The presentation explained required state reporting procedures, including use of the state's 338 HIB form and a Department of Education change allowing some preliminary reports to be resolved as outside the HIB definition. "A total of 23 submitted HIB claims for the district were preliminarily determined as not proceeding because they did not meet the scope of the state definition on its surface," Miss Kea said, adding that those matters can still be investigated as other disciplinary or remedial incidents.

Board members asked whether the decline reflects students leaving versus behavior change and whether the same students are reappearing across reporting periods. Miss Kea said the trend appears driven by a combination of factors: return-to-school routines after the pandemic, targeted programs, updated high school policies (including a new cell-phone policy) and more staff training. She said investigators are trained to "err on the side of caution" when an allegation is reported and that some preliminary reports, once investigated, are determined to be conflict rather than HIB by state definition.

Administrators said the HIB data and examples will be published on the district website and offered additional context on restorative practices, monthly security training for substitutes and one-on-one work with anti-bullying specialists. The board indicated it will continue to monitor the measures and hear follow-up information in committee sessions scheduled for August.

The public meeting moved on after the presentation; no formal board actions were taken on policy changes during this evening's session.