Promote Respect is a year-long program of universal intervention within our Positive Behavior Intervention Support framework. Our approach is proactive and utilizes positive interventions to teach expectations of respect, provides opportunities for students to practice those skills and make it a part of their daily routine. This work aligns with Goal 2 of our Imagine Tomorrow strategic plan: All students, staff, parents, and community members will exemplify a culture of safety, personal responsibility, and supportive relationships.

A Promote Respect Task Force was established in 2012 to address bullying behavior concerns and implement 2014 state mandate requirements, including: 

• Training staff in proactive ways to prevent and intervene in bullying situations; 
• Educating students about preventing and reporting bullying behavior; and 
• Establishing procedures to investigate incidents, maintaining data on outcomes and reviewing data to determine proactive action steps.

Research confirms that common language and consistency among schools within a division supported positive reporting practices. So the task force group

• wrote a division definition of bullying behavior to increase school staff awareness. 
• developed consistent messaging about what respect looks like and sounds like, starting with the description of respect of self, respect of property and respect between peers and generations.
• conducted division-wide professional development, asking schools to: 
  • identify a school committee to promote and sustain a positive learning culture;
  • establish school-wide reporting procedures and systems; and
  • offer presentation templates to stakeholders including evidence based practices and common language to support staff, students and parents. (The presentations are to cover preventing and reporting disrespectful behavior and providing resources and activities at all levels to sustain Promote Respect throughout the school year.) 

Promote Respect is our school division’s means of educating parents, staff, and students about bullying prevention. It outlines procedures to report, investigate, and intervene when bullying behavior occurs. Promote Respect was developed using research-based practices and it fulfills the state mandate requiring each school board to implement policy and procedures to educate stakeholders about bullying in order to create a respectful school climate free of bullying.