Bill That Would Allow Students to Fight Back in Bullying Incidents Moves Through (Montana) Legislature (opponents: "fighting violence with violence is not a real solution and will just escalate most situations in a school setting")

Stacy Roope says her 16-year-old son Trey is bullied every day in the hallways and even while walking to school. She said her son is constantly tormented, and what’s worse is that he isn’t able to defend himself.

“Trey is not afraid of the kids who bully him, but in the back of his mind he’s always thinking about what’s going to happen today,” Roope said. “It’s an emotional roller coaster that happens to him every day, one day he could walk to the school with no issues, the next day he’s getting slammed into the lockers.”

Roope, of Helena, said bullying has left her child feeling depressed and isolated during what should be key years of growth in his life. She said right now, parents of bullies and school officials aren’t doing enough.

That’s why Roope said she supports a bill moving through the Montana Legislature that would allow students who are being bullied to fight back in self-defense without repercussions from the school.

“A lot of kids who want to go to school and do a good job are unable to. They are battling daily with the bullies. Because of the bullying they are unable to function in a class setting, kids withdraw themselves from activities that they should be able to go to at any age level because they’re not comfortable when the school takes them out,” Roope said. “Frankly they don’t understand why they are the ones being bullied. They become suicidal and if that doesn’t pull at your heart strings then what does?”

House Bill 450, sponsored by Rep. Jedediah Hinkle, R-Belgrade, passed the House on a party-line vote, 69-27, on March 1, and was transferred over to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Following a 7-4 vote in that committee on March 16, HB 450 now goes to the full Senate for debate, where it then could be sent to the governor’s desk.

“It’s a bill to protect the right to self defense in a school setting. Currently, many schools employ a ‘zero tolerance policy’ when it comes to physical fighting or force on school grounds or school-sanctioned events,” Hinkle said. “This means that if one student attacks another student, say throw them against the locker and proceed to pummel the student with their fists, if the student who has been attacked fights back they will both be disciplined.”

Hinkle said the state’s policy of dealing with students who defend themselves is unjust because it punishes bullies and those being bullied equally. He also questioned several schools’ implementation of the state’s anti-bullying policy, and said that self-defense is a right that all students should have.

“From the dawn of humankind, people have naturally been defending themselves from attack, and I believe the right to self defense is an inherent natural right that a school should not have the authority to strip away,” Hinkle said during the bill’s hearing in the Senate Judiciary hearing last week.

Roope was one of several parents at the hearing sharing stories about their children being bullied and discussing how they wished their child was able to fight back in situations.

Trina Fortney, another parent testifying on behalf of their child, spoke about her child being bullied his senior year in high school in Bozeman.

“Our child had begun to be bullied by another student, unfortunately it became a situation where the bullying escalated to more of a gang mentality where more than one child would gang up and threaten him,” Fortney said.

Fortney said that her family went through all the school procedures to try to get their son help, but to no real avail. She then asked the school about the possibility of her son being able to defend himself under these circumstances and said the school told her he would be suspended if he fought back.

Meanwhile, opponents of HB 450 say that while the legislation brings up a valuable discussion about bullying, it misses the mark when it comes to real solutions.

Rob Watson, representing the School Administrators in Montana, opposes HB 450 and said the bill is not an anti-bullying bill and called it an overreach by the Legislature.

“The bill itself uses [Montana Code] 20-5-209 which is a real simple law that describes that bullying is not permitted in K through 12 schools. Unfortunately, then the bill goes on to describe use of physical force, and in my experience, use of physical force is not always a bullying issue,” Watson said.

Watson said he agrees that bullying does occasionally lead to physical force, but that the actions described in the bill are not a bullying issue that public schools face. He said physical force in schools is most commonly related to fights between two students, and not bullying itself.

He said physical altercations of any kind can’t be condoned because they are disruptive to the school environment and damaging to other students’ ability to learn at the institution. They are also detrimental to a “safe school environment” that public schools and administrators encourage, Watson said.

“School safety is one of those basic issues. When kids go to school and they don’t feel safe, it's very difficult to learn. Physical altercations definitely have an impact on school safety,” Watson said. “For the individual student, we generally discourage students from participating in physical altercations.”

Watson said it is often forgotten that condoning or allowing students to take action in fights can lead to real injuries both physically and mentally.

Sarah Piper, representing the Montana Federation of Public Employees, also spoke against the bill and shared similar concerns as Watson’s.

Piper said her heart breaks as a former teacher when hearing the stories from parents and students about being bullied, but the bill attempts to solve a problem in a way that it can’t accomplish.

“Many of the things heard today would be better solved by exactly what some of the proponents mentioned: More resource officers, more counseling support. Schools have brought in programs that are about upstanding, as they say, instead of bystanding in these situations, not in a physical way, but to make sure that students don’t get to a point where physical violence feels like the only solution,” Piper said.

She said students need to be taught de-escalation techniques sooner in schools, but it can be extremely difficult to make young kids understand why they should go play in a different area or walk away from uncomfortable situations.

Piper said the bill gives no real solution and just makes it so that if you’re hit you can hit back. She said that fighting violence with violence is not a real solution and will just escalate most situations in a school setting.

“Discipline policy is established by local school boards who are elected by members of their communities. We strongly believe that’s where these policies should be adopted, not by legislative overreach into the authority that is vested with the school boards,” Piper said.

The bill is one of several at the Legislature that seek to put more statewide policy into the school system, such as, House Bill 744, which would allow students and teachers to openly discuss religious beliefs, House Bill 745, which deals with religious texts and prayer in schools, and House Bill 502, which clarifies earlier legislation requiring parental notification of sex ed materials.

This wonderful post of yours needs to be repeated on every education thread.

Everyone needs to understand that these battle lines were drawn a LONG time ago, and the left has pretty deftly boxed in many people along legal, ethical, and moral dimensions.
Indeed, one thing that leftists tend to do better than conservatives is to keep the offense on the field, even if they have a 4th and out. To be fair, they can do that because this game’s officials (the MSM, most of Leviathan, and about 20% of the nation) are either Establishment Liberals or Progressive Left. Thus, while most people would see a clean tackle on these issues, the officials call a personal foul on the defense and it’s a new 1st and 10.

This 20%/statist lot have very quietly but very effectively built an offensive strategy aimed at parent’s rights. And while this putz in New Mexico is annoying, he’s right - under In loco parentis you surrendered certain parental rights when you turned Johnny or Mary over to the school. That is the foot in the door.

In the latest assault to bust that door wide open, the left turned “trans kids” into human shields. (In a few cases, there ARE actual medical situations where parents need care and support; it’s a family matter. But those instances are rare. Many other cases are acts of rebellion.)

In doing so, these statists have recast (intentionally) this as an issue of contemporary morality, a “civil rights” issue. In this offensive play, it absolutely IS the job of the teacher to address pronouns AND keep it from the parents, because the teachers have an ethical responsibility to the child which trumps the parents’ right to know. In this separate article, it was stated that:

Educators have also said they feel bound by their own morality to affirm students’ gender identities, especially in cases where students don’t feel safe coming out at home. (emphasis-added)

...

Other teachers believe they have a moral responsibility to withhold such information. “My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids,” said Olivia Garrison, a history teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., who is nonbinary, who has helped students socially transition at school without their parents’ knowledge. “Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents.”

...

Courts have ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment, parents get to make medical and mental health decisions for their children, as well as direct their education and upbringing in other ways, unless they are abusive or unfit. But lawyers for schools have countered that parental rights aren’t absolute. Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Education has said that discriminating against students based on gender identity violates federal policy, although its guidance doesn’t specifically address parental rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also argued that it’s unconstitutional for public schools to reveal a student’s gender identity to others. Angry parents can put their child in private school or home-school them, said an A.C.L.U. lawyer, Jon Davidson, who is co-counsel for a school district that was sued by parents in Wisconsin. “Parents don’t have a constitutional right to dictate to schools how they should create an optimal learning environment for students,” he said.

There is even more. The National Association for the Education of Young Children in 2019 argued that if a teacher deems a problem (e.g., comply with this family’s request to keep a son from activities associated with girls or femininity) to be that of an ethical responsibility (a situation with just one morally justified course of action) and not an ethical dilemma (a situation for which there is more than one possible resolution, which can be justified in moral terms) , THEY CAN IGNORE THE PARENTS.

In the summmer of 2020, when most of us were dealing with re-election and the pandemic, the ACLU wrote a letter to school principals and superintendents saying:

Specifically, without full and voluntary consent by the student, it is against the law to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity, even to a student’s parents (emphasis added) or other school administrators.

Finally, the National Association of Secondary School Principals issued this ruling in February 2017 (based on the date stamp in the html code) that:

Privacy: Unless the student chooses to disclose certain information, his or her transgender status, legal name or sex assigned at birth is confidential medical information and considered “personally identifiable information” under the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA). Disclosure of that information to other school staff or parents could violate the school’s obligations under FERPA or constitutional privacy protections. (emphasis added)

The groundwork for this teacher takeover of parent’s rights was laid years ago. To a certain extent, the pandemic messed up their plans because many parents who aren’t political saw on Zoom what their kids were learning, and got involved. But, as I said, the left is really good at being aggressive, even if they lose on 4th and goal. Because they know, with a lot of spineless opponents, they’ll get the football back.

Anyone who homeschooled their kids had many reasons, but at its core we believe that WE, the PARENTS and GUARDIANS, are the ones who can best call the shots. Our rights in that regard are plenary. And yes, as with all rights, abuses occur. But just like with the right to keep and bear arms, plenary rights cannot be watered down due to the behavior of bad actors.

And yes, while all this may SEEM like a trans or gay thing, that’s just the entertainment division of the Educational/Industrial Complex hypnotizing you. Maybe the kids are becoming “trans” like kids became goths as an act of rebellion. They outgrow it (usually).

But the left plays the entire game. They know this whole debate will play out in the public and courts for YEARS. By then, even if we get a win, the damage will be done and a generation of confused kids will not know of parents rights. In fact, the ones on the margin and who aren’t totally brainwashed will ask Mom and Dad “why the f didn’t you pull me out of school?” What will be YOUR response? We needed two incomes, we had a mortgage, you weren’t that important.

The left’s end game? It’s always speculative, but it’s worth noting that the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto is “Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.

Or, as the Dead Kennedy’s said, you’ll work harder with a gun in your back, for a bowl of rice a day.

This won’t be solved by letters to the editor, getting on the School Board, or ranting on FR. If you have a child, you must understand this gridiron, and that the officials are on the other team’s payroll. You must also understand that what’s at stake is more than whether you son gets to be called Florence at school.

Be MacArthur and leave Corregidor NOW. You can always return later, BUT LEAVE NOW.

/rant

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