•  

    OLWEUS HARASSMENT PREVENTION PROGRAM
     
    Great Valley is proud to be one of many districts locally, nationally, and internationally to be implementing the 
    OLWEUS (pronounced Ol-VAY-us)
    BULLYING/HARASSMENT PREVENTION PROGRAM. 
     
     
     Harassment and bullying continue to be one of the most common forms of aggression and victimization experienced by school age children.   
     
                                                                        
                                             We are talking about hurtful behaviors that are:
     
                                                                         INTENDED TO HURT
                                                                                   REPEATED
                                                             INVOLVE AN IMBALANCE OF POWER
                                                             (social status, intelligence, strength, money etc.)
     
                                                                     These behaviors include:
     
                                                                        Physical : hitting, shoving 
                                                      Verbal:  name calling, threatening, intimidating, teasing
                                                  Relational: leaving someone out, rumors   
                                                               Cyber: hurtful messaging                                                
     
     
     
     A POWERFUL animated video about the hurtful effects of bullying:
    To This Day Project by Shane Koyczan
     
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY&noredirect=1
     
    National Statistics tell us that:
    • About 160,000 students skip school on a daily basis because of fear of being harassed
    • More than 3 million students are the targets of harassment each year
    • Another 2 million are the perpetrators of harassment
    • In the U.S., children are the targets of verbal or physical harassment about once every 5 minutes
    • Middle school students who harass other students are more likely to drop out of school, smoke and drink to excess, get into fights and vandalize property.  60% of these students have a criminal record by the age of 24.
     
    Great Valley High School Statistics (Olweus Survey Spring 2009) tell us that:
    • 11.4% of students in GVHS reported that they had been harassed from 2 to 3 times a month up to several times a week in school
    • 6.0% of students in GVHS admit to taking part in bullying/harassing other students in school from 2 to 3 times a month up to several times a week
    • 35.0% of GVHS students who witness bullying/harassment think that they ought to help but either don't know what to do or are afraid of what might happen as a result.
    • 23.9% of GVHS students report that they do in fact try to help
    • Olweus Incident Reports have included bullying/harassment about issues related to race, disabilty, sexual behavior, sexual orientation, social status, body size and shape and more... 
     
     
    Any and all bullying/harassment in our school
    affects each and every one of us. 
    It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to 
    address this problem to make our school
    the safest school that it can be. 
     
     
     
    THE OLWEUS PROGRAM:
     
    Olweus is a comprehensive, well researched school wide K-12 program to address harassment. It was created by Dr. Dan Olweus of Norway.  The goals of the Olweus Program are to reduce and prevent bullying and harassment problems among students and to improve peer relations at school. Olweus has been found to reduce bullying and harassment among students, improve the social climate of classrooms, and reduce antisocial behaviors. Olweus has been implemented in more than a dozen countries around the world and in thousands of schools in the US.
     
    RECOGNITION OF THE OLWEUS PROGRAM:
     
    Olweus has received recognition from a number of organizations committed to preventing school violence.
    The program has been named:
    • Blueprints Model Program, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado, Boulder
    • Effective Program, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice
    • Level 2 Program, U.S. Department of Education ("Level 2" programs have been scienfically demonstrated to prevent delinquency or reduce risk and enhance protection for deliquency and other child and youth problems using either an experimental or quasi-experimental research design with a comparison group)
    • Olweus has recently been endorsed in the American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement.
    HOW THE OLWEUS PROGRAM WORKS:
     
    Olweus provides us with a structured and meaningful way to address reports of harassment and bullying. Our students completed an Olweus Survey in the Spring of  2009 that gave us a tremendous amount of information about bullying in our high school.  We have been working to educate our students, staff, faculty, and families about harassment and bullying.  We encourage anyone who becomes aware of an issue involving bullying or harassment to make a referral to the Olweus Team by submitting an Olweus Incident Report. (see below) The Olweus Team then meets to review the referral and to decide upon an appropriate response. We meet individually with the target of the harassment and with the student suspected of doing the harassing. We develop a plan of support for each.  We inform parents. We follow up to try to insure that the problems have been resolved. We keep track of our referrals and our work.
    We trust that with the continued efforts of all of the Great Valley community that the implementation of the Olweus Program will help to make Great Valley High School a safe place for all of our students.
     
     
     
     
    TO DO YOUR PART IN ADDRESSING HARASSMENT/BULLYING: REPORT A CONCERN:
     
    If you are concerned that your child or a student that you know is being bullied or harrassed or is bullying or harassing someone else, please consider submitting an Olweus Incident Report.  We will then explore and address your concern. Click on the link below to access the Olweus Incident Report.  When you are finished, click on DONE and the report will be forwarded to the appropriate personnel. Thank you!
     
     
    Olweus Harrassment Form
     
     
    If you want to stay current and have a Twitter account, check this out! 

     Follow @stopbullyinggov today!