Dear REV. ANNE,
I’m writing to give you an update on our Safe Schools campaign to protect ALL students from harassment and bullying.
This past Tuesday was a big day in Tallahassee – both the Senate and the House held hearings on companion Safe Schools bills. We testified before both committees about the need for amendments because the current anti-bullying legislation not only fails to adequately protect students, but it also repeals strong local policies that do.
The Bad News
The House bill passed its final hearing without being amended in a way that would either protect existing local policies or offer specific prohibitions of the most common forms of bullying.
The Senate bill, which is identical to the House bill, also passed its first committee hearing without amendments. We worked with Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, to offer an amendment that would allow local school boards to keep their existing strong policies. Despite Sen. Klein’s impassioned attempt to protect anti-bullying policies that have proven effective, Republicans rejected his amendment on a straight party-line vote, 5-3.
The Good News
Having vehemently resisted previous calls the do so, lawmakers pushing this legislation have had to state on the record that this bill is intended to protect gay students. Thanks to the thousands of emails, hundreds of phone calls and dozens of lobby visits you have made over the last six weeks, we have built tremendous support for ensuring that ALL students are truly protected.
Rep. Bogdanoff, the bills sponsor, went so far as to state that the anti-bullying training teachers will receive must cover the most common types of bullying, including anti-gay harassment.
Legislators pledged to revisit the bill if there was evidence that students are being overlooked because of the restrictions the policy imposes on local school boards. We will hold legislators to those promises. However, we still have a tremendous opportunity fix what is dangerously flawed in this bill and will continue our efforts as the bill moves through the Senate.
School Board members, students, community leaders and anti-bullying experts are rallying support - literally. Over 50 supporters attended our Safe Schools Rally in Broward County on Monday including two Broward County School Board members, Robin Bartleman and Maureen Dinnen, who spoke forcefully in support of amending the current bill.
The strong support from our broad and visible coalition ensured we were able to grab perfectly timed newspaper and television coverage that pointed out the serious flaws of the bill.
Keep up the good work by keeping up the pressure. We still have a goal of ensuring that strong local policies are not repealed and we can only achieve that goal with you continued activism and support. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for more details as the next hearing approaches.
If you haven’t contributed to our Safe Schools effort yet, click the following link today: I Support Safe Schools. Your gift helps cover the cost of getting our best messengers to Tallahassee to testify.
Sincerely,
Nadine SmithExecutive Director