Schools set to enforce no-harassment policy

Wet willies and wedgies will not be tolerated this year in Clark County schools.

Initiations such as senior football players swatting freshman teammates on the buttocks with paddles or weightlifting belts will not be tolerated either.

And it should go without saying that major forms of harassment such as racial slurs, sexual harassment and other crimes will not be tolerated.

In short the message to students and teachers on the first day of school this year -- four months after a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. -- is that if you hinder, haze or harass anyone there will be penalties to pay. They can range from reprimands to, if the offense is serious enough, expulsion.

"I'm not saying harassment is not going to happen, but you will be hard-pressed to find any principal who will turn his or her head away from it these days," said Tom Rodriguez, the manager of diversity and affirmative action for the Clark County School District. "All we can do is set policy and enforce it the best we can."

Rodriguez was a member of a committee that wrote the district's harassment policy that was adopted last April by the Clark County School Board.

That policy defines harassment as "any verbal, visual or physical conduct which is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it adversely affects ... the student's educational program or creates an intimidating, hostile ... school atmosphere."

Rodriguez says that while the old district policy covered what was addressed in the new policy, the news media's coverage of the progress of the new policy as it wound its way through the system "has given the issue a higher visibility."

In addition, the Columbine shooting has brought new attention to hazing and harassment in schools after gunman Eric Harris' diary noted that one motive for the killing rampage was harassment by other students.

Columbine High School officials said they had a "zero tolerance" policy for harassment, but some students and parents contended after the shootings that it wasn't enforced.

In Clark County the key will be enforcement as well and, as under the old policy, that is up to the principals. Area high school principals say their tolerance levels are set firmly at zero.

"I do not expect to have many harassment problems because after the first instance everyone will see that we will jump on the violation right away and deal with it seriously," said Ron Montoya, principal at Valley High School.

"This does not mean that we will throw out every student (who commits harassment). The punishment will be determined by the severity of the action."

Robert Chesto, principal at Chaparral High School, said administrators can no longer adopt a "boys will be boys" attitude even for seemingly mild infractions like sports team initiations.

"We've taken a unique approach to initiations by adopting for our varsity teams a little brother program," he said. "The little brothers will do things like get oranges for their upperclassman big brothers. In turn the big brothers will help their little brothers pass their classes and be successful in school.

"It's bonding together instead of embarrassment and humiliation. We've tried to replace practices like trash-canning someone, tearing their underwear or calling them 'honey, sugar or baby' with things that are positive."

Pamela Salazar, the new principal at Basic High School, said when she was assistant principal at Western High, the most frequent and troubling example of harassment she had to deal with was boys sexually harassing girls.

However, she said, in many instances it was ignorance on the part of the offender, rather than an overt plot to cause the victim discomfort.

"I'd get complaints from a girl like a boy is saying bad things about her or making inappropriate comments or advances," Salazar said. "I'd sit the boy down to have a talk with him and he'd respond: 'Gee, I thought girls liked that.'

"You have to get it across that their behavior is causing someone to be uncomfortable and that it will not be tolerated. And there are instances where girls have done things to boys that were inappropriate. It's a matter of educating them about behavior."

Montoya agreed that sexual harassment is among the most serious violations. Also in that category, he said -- and likely to bring expulsion -- would be fights initiated by gang activity, especially those that involved weapons.

Chesto said classes at his school include role playing to teach tolerance and respect.

"Even though we've had fights on campus, we've not had any interracial fights or boy-girl fights in two years," he said. "I would attribute a good deal of that to the role playing and the goals we set three years ago to address harassment."

Salazar disagrees with those who say that because we live in a more violent time the issue of harassment has come to the forefront.

"I'm not so sure that we are a more violent society despite what some statistics show," she said. "I believe instead that there is more awareness about issues and that we are better addressing humanistic behavior.

"That is why we do not accept what was accepted in the past. We know that some of the things that once were accepted are not the way we should treat other people."

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