Documentation

Whether or not bullying is a problem in your classroom, you should keep anecdotal records of students’ behavior. If you have students who are or who might become potential bullies, anecdotal records are even more important. If a student has more than one teacher, each teacher should keep behavioral logs, and they should be compared from time-to-time. Why is this so important? When parent meetings are conducted, a parent will usually confront the anecdotals from one teacher, but if more than one teacher has similar anecdotal records, the information presented will be viewed more legitimately by the parent. Often, a parent will view a negative one-on-one conference with a teacher subjectively and believe that the teacher is picking on his/her kid or worse yet, that the teacher really doesn’t like his/her kid. As an aside, parent meetings should always be held with more than one teacher present. If that’s not possible, an administrator or guidance counselor should be present for support. Never try to go at it alone with the parent of a student who is a bully.