HOMEDALE — With many kids in the valley starting school this week, there's one topic that's on the minds of many, including teachers and parents: bullying.
Since the beginning of 2018, a team from the College of Education at Boise State University has been dedicated to finding ways to make our rural schools safer. Now, they're getting ready to expand their research into a trial run in 40 schools.
For the last eight months, the team has been working with three pilot schools: Homedale Elementary School, Middle School, and High School.
When the team was going through the grant process, they realized that rural schools have a different set of challenges and barriers than more urban schools, and without evidence-based research, it's been difficult to find ways to promote school safety and anti-bullying that will work now and in the future.
"Bullying has always been an issue unfortunately and it continues to be one," said Superintendent Rob Sauer.
"Our main focus is really prevention so rather than reacting and putting out fires, we're trying to prevent anything from a minor infraction to a major infraction," said Katie Bubak-Azevedo, the director of Idaho Positive Behavior Network.
The research team, including Bubak-Azevedo, is hoping that educating teachers, finding what resources work and don't work, and creating classroom standards is what leads to that prevention.
"If we're seeing a misbehavior whether it's disrespect, defiance or bullying behavior, is that student trying to get something or trying to get away from something?" said Bubak-Azevedo. "Then solve it from there. If we don't know the function or the 'why' of the behavior then most likely they're going to continue doing it because it will continue to be effective for them."
Bullying is one aspect of school safety that isn't necessarily easy to solve, and every situation is unique.
"The gurus feel that bullying is one of those issues that we haven't gotten very good at preventing," Bubak-Azevedo said.
She also says every situation is unique.
"Is that behavior intentional?," said Bubak-Azevedo. "Is it harmful? There's some different factors that go into it. They're also not just looking at bullying behavior but also intimidation and harassment because how do you really pull those apart?"
Sauer said cyberbullying is the hardest to fight.
"Now with technology, you can't get away from them or it seems like you can't and I think that's a challenge our youth face today," he said.
Sauer says oftentimes, it feels like they can never truly catch up.
"The number one issue is by the time we have the research, we have the tools of what to do, the technology has changed," Bubak-Azevedo said.
"We need to keep learning about these technologies and understanding what our students are exposed to and have access to," Sauer said. "Maybe we don't have an interest in it but it's part of their everyday life."
At the end of this research period, Sauer says all of the three pilot schools in the district will be speaking the same language when it comes to behavior standards.
"In the whole system we want to be respectful, we want to be responsible, and we want everyone in our system to feel safe, and we want to do our best to choose that positive attitude," said Sauer.
"If you're creating a behavior framework for your school, you're creating a system where bullying behavior isn't compatible with school social norms of the school," said Bubak-Azevedo.
She says there are 220 Idaho schools that are eligible to join this randomized control trial, but only 40 of them will be able to participate. And half of those schools will be receiving upgraded resources that have been found to be helpful through this year of research at the Homedale schools.