The Amherst Exempted Village School District is committed to providing a safe, positive, productive, and nurturing educational environment for all of its students. Aggressive and inappropriate behavior is prohibited and will not be tolerated. This prohibition applies to all activities in the District, including activities on school property, on a school bus, or off school property during any school-sponsored, school-approved or school-related activity or function, such as field trips or athletic events where students are under the school’s control and supervision.

In support of this stance, the Amherst Exempted Village School District promotes preventative educational measures to create greater awareness of aggressive behavior, including bullying. The district provides appropriate training to staff members regarding bullying and other forms of harassment including the required training in the prevention of child abuse, violence, and substance abuse and the promotion of positive youth development. The district also provides students with age-appropriate instruction regarding bullying and inappropriate behavior including positive behavioral interventions and supports about how to prevent bullying, respond to bullying, and supporting students affected by bullying.

Bullying is any intentional written, verbal, electronic, or physical act that a student or group of students exhibits toward another student more than once, and the behavior both causes mental and physical harm to the other student and is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student. In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power (such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity) to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.

• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.