Iowa’s legislature just received recognition for its educational reforms to its property tax reforms and a compromise on its Medicaid expansion. However, one subject that fell short was the issue of bullying.
However, the good news is that Gov. Terry Branstad plans on revisiting the issue of bullying next year. Branstad recently stated that he will convene another anti-bullying state summit later this year. He hopes to pass anti-bullying legislation to improve the legislation that Iowa already has to counter bullying.
The main focus of Branstad’s anti-bullying legislation plans is targeted towards cyberbullying, which involves “tormenting, threatening, harassing or embarrassing someone using the Internet or other technologies, like cell phones.”
Branstad has two goals: One is to include social networking in the definition of cyberbullying and in bullying itself. Students are no longer being locked in their lockers. They’re being tormented and harassed on social networking sites through Tweets or on their Facebook timeline. The second goal is to give school administrators more authority under state law to handle cyberbullying that occurs outside of school. For instance, if someone is being harassed on Facebook outside of school, school administrators would have the right to punish the cyberbully even if the bullying has no direct effect on school function and does not occur on school property.
To read more on these goals and some statistics, check out:
http://globegazette.com/news/opinion/editorial/branstad-deserves-credit-for-leading-on-cyberbullying-editorial/article_4f583aa0-d947-11e2-9550-001a4bcf887a.html
Check out our own Laws and Legislations page at http://www.endcyberbullying.org/cyber-bullying-laws-legislations/ and our Statistics pages at http://www.endcyberbullying.org/cyber-bullying-statistics/.
