Lloyd Road School Sees Increase in Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying Incidents

Lloyd Road Elementary School saw an increase in harassment, intimidation and bullying during the 2010-11 academic year in comparison to the 2009-10 year, according to the required annual report filed with the N.J. Department of Education.

State law mandates that all New Jersey public school districts, including charter schools, use the N.J. Department of Education Electronic Violence and Vandalism Reporting System to report incidents of violence, vandalism, weapons possession and substance abuse.

In 2010-11, the Matawan Aberdeen Regional School District saw an overall increase in the total number of incidents of violence, vandalism, weapons and substance abuse from 18 to 48, many of which took place at Lloyd Road Elementary School.

According to Superintendent David Healy, 23 of the reported instances occurred at Lloyd Road with 17 of those instances in the area of harassment, intimidation and bullying.

Healy said that the increase is in part due to new reporting regulations and a heightened awareness surrounding bullying.

"Last year, a lot of attention was brought to the whole bullying issue and with the new legislation, it brought a heightened awareness to bullying and more incidents were reported," Healy said.

The majority of the incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying at Lloyd Road School happened during arrival, dismissal and recess. Healy believes this  is in part due to a lack of administrative presence at the school.

In 2010, prior to Healy becoming superintendent, budget cuts and administrative cuts resulted in the elimination of the assistant principal at Lloyd Road, according to Healy.

"That effects the overall supervision, when you are really cutting your administrative staff by fifty percent that definitely will have an effect on a number of areas, particularly supervision of students," Healy said.

In order to attempt to remedey this situation, the board of education has created a stronger administrative presence by having four days per week when one of two Matawan Aberdeen Middle School vice principals spends a half-day in Lloyd Road School.

"What we've been doing is working on building operations and coverage strategies during lunch, recess and other periods when the other issues occur," said Healy. "I don't feel that in a district our size it is alarming. We are going to address it."

According to his Healy, the rest of the reported numbers remained relatively stable between the two academic years. There were two less assaults, three more fights, one instance of sex offense in each year, three more instances of damaged property, five more cases of theft. There were also three reported incidents of possession of a weapon that is not a firearm and the total number of substance abuse incidents increased by three, from four to seven.