IDAHO — A bill making its way through the Idaho House concerning bullying in schools has failed.
As written, HB 539 would "amend existing law to require school principals to notify parents and guardians of a student’s involvement in harassment, intimidation, bullying, violence, or self-harm and to provide empowering materials and requires school districts to report incidents and confirm the distribution of the materials to the State Department of Education."
School districts are already required to report cases of bullying to the state once per year. Added in HB 539, is a notification to parents and resources for them to support their child.
Rep. Chris Mathias, who introduced the bill, says high suicides among students and faculty is a primary motivation behind the bill.
"Parents have a right to know what is happening to their kids in school. When something is happening to that child that puts their lives in jeopardy, the lives of others in jeopardy, that seems to be a great opportunity, and again, most of them [schools] already do this, to send home a couple of paragraphs with very tailored and helpful pieces of information that can help parents protect their children," Rep. Mathias added.
During debate of the bill, Rep. Bruce D. Skaug said more policies for school districts creates a higher likelihood of policies being violated.
"I've successfully, for my clients, sued school districts in situations such as come about this. The first thing a good attorney does when a student has been injured, is look for policy that has been violated by the school district. The more policies, the more likely one is going to be violated," said Skaug.
In response, Rep. Ilana Rubel explained legislation from 2015, which required schools to collect information on bullying and report it to the State.
"The Idaho Tort Act does provide that the employees cannot be liable unless they act with actual malice. Simply failing their obligations would not be enough to put them on the hook." Rubel continued, "The best thing we can do is do everything we can to act to prevent that [suicides] from happening. That'll help reduce exposure to lawsuits too. Lawsuits happen when kids die. If we can take sensible steps to avoid that from happening in the first place, that's the best thing we can do to prevent liability."
During the House legislative session on Monday, the bill failed on a vote of 32-38-0. The bill will not advance to the senate.
