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District data show most bullying investigations tied to school buses; board hears plan to target older grades
Summary
At its July 21 meeting the Little Egg Harbor Township Board of Education heard a mandated Student Safety Data System report showing the majority of confirmed HIB (harassment, intimidation, bullying) findings and out-of-school suspensions occurred on buses; administrators said they will target interventions for older elementary grades and improve video-review procedures.
Jacqueline Truziano, the district’s director of personnel planning and evaluation, presented the Student Safety Data System (SSDS) submission covering January–June and told the board the busiest sites for investigations were the district’s buses.
"For our submission number 2, which went from January to June ... we had 4 unfounded investigations and 7 confirmed investigations that were founded," Truziano said, summarizing the findings for Broadcom School and later reporting Mitchell School had two confirmed findings and the ECC reported zeros across categories. She said there were nine out-of-school suspensions in the district reporting period and that most HIB investigations originate on school buses.
Truziano walked board members through training and prevention activities the district has implemented, including anti-bullying specialists, CPI training for special-education staff and bus drivers, and staff-led book studies on classroom culture. She said incident reporting is submitted twice yearly and that many preliminary submissions are handled as code-of-conduct matters rather than HIB investigations.
Board members pressed for operational details. One member asked whether new buses have cameras and how footage is reviewed; staff replied that buses have cameras and that footage may be made available to building principals "within minutes" for review, but that formal discipline determinations come from school administrators with anti-bullying specialists and principals leading any HIB inquiry.
Administrators noted a grade-level pattern in recent years: one year the largest share of HIB investigations was in fourth grade, the next year fifth grade, and the district is preparing for sixth grade to show higher rates next year. Truziano said the district will proactively place supports in the grades where incidents concentrate.
The board took no formal action on the report; the presentation provided the factual baseline staff said they will use to refine supervision, assigned seating and targeted programming for bus and higher-grade populations.
