This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the Jamari Terrell Williams Student Bullying Prevention Act.

It is the intent of the Legislature to provide for the adoption of policies in public school systems to prevent the bullying of students. It is the further intent of the Legislature that this chapter apply only to student against student bullying, intimidation, violence, and threats of violence in the public schools of Alabama, and between students while not on school property, in grades prekindergarten through 12, and that the State Department of Education develop, and each local board of education adopt procedural policies to manage and possibly prevent these acts against any student by another student or students based on the characteristics of a student. Additionally, it is the intent of the Legislature that the filing of a complaint of bullying be in writing and submitted by the affected student, or the parent or guardian of the affected student, and not by an education employee on behalf of an affected student or his or her parent or guardian.

(d) Each school shall develop plans or programs, including, but not limited to, peer mediation teams, in an effort to encourage students to report and address incidents of bullying, violence, or threats of violence. At the beginning of each school year, each school shall programmatically address the issue of bullying and school violence with faculty and students. The program shall include a discussion of available resources and shall encourage the reporting of incidents of bullying. Each school shall also periodically convene a committee of faculty and students to review and discuss the issue of bullying and make recommendations to school administrators regarding school climate, safety, and bullying. The local superintendent of education may report any recommendations to the local board for its consideration.

Each school shall do all of the following: (1) Develop and implement evidence-based practices to promote a school environment that is free of harassment, intimidation, violence, and threats of violence. (2) Develop and implement evidence-based practices to prevent harassment, intimidation, violence, and threats of violence based, as a minimum, on the criteria established by this chapter and local board policy, and to intervene when such incidents occur. (3) Incorporate into civility, citizenship, and character education curricula awareness of and sensitivity to the prohibitions of this chapter and local board policy against harassment, intimidation, violence, and threats of violence. (4) Report statistics to the local board of actual violence, submitted reports of threats of violence, and harassment. The local board shall provide the statistics of the school system and each school in the school system to the department for posting on the department website. The posted statistics shall be available to the public and any state or federal agency requiring the information. The identity of each student involved shall be protected and may not be posted on the department website.

This document outlines a student bullying model policy for LEAs to use in the development of their local policies.