The Monitoring and Implementation of a School District-Wide Grass-Root Anti-Bullying Initiative: Because Nice Matters

Background: School community initiatives have the potential to not only address problems among youth but also to empower a school community during the process. Many anti-bullying evidence based programs are disseminated ‘top-down’ to schools and districts that may not have the need for such programs or the ability to implement them effectively (Benbenishty & Astor, 2007). This paper presents a process in which a school district used the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) to assess its needs. Based on the survey, the Temecula Valley Unified School District proposed a grass-roots initiative approach to this issue, and developed Because Nice Matters (BNM) to increase bullying awareness district-wide. This program includes awareness raising activities such as: wearing purple and black to remind everyone that bullying can cause physical and psychological damage, or wearing white to signify making a fresh start. Additionally, the district painted a school bus with the slogan “BNM”, designed to raise community awareness. The paper will present the program and its evaluation.

Methods: The program was evaluated from the perspective of two school stakeholder groups—parents (n = 89) and teachers (n = 67). This was a mixed methods study that consisted of an internet-based survey with open and closed ended questions and interviews with district leadership. Descriptive quantitative analyses as well a thematic analysis of qualitative data were employed.   

Results: Quantitative and qualitative analysis reveal two most prominent themes among both parents and teachers: 1) BNM is a successful program that other schools can learn from (about 75% of teachers and parents)  and 2) BNM helped students understand that bullying is ‘very bad’(about 80% of respondents). Nearly 70% of parents (N=89) indicated that BNM helped students become more caring. Parent participation in BNM efforts was lower (15%) than teacher participation (60%). The qualitative analysis also indicated that teachers and parents valued participation in this program, and that parents supported the need for this program and the implementation of BNM. For instance, some parents commented that “Our bullying rally really opened up people's eyes to what can happen. The rally left people in tears and many people in shock of the possibilities of bullying; Bullying is a complicated issue and should be addressed and controlled. The BNM program is a great way to call attention to this issue.”

Conclusion: The BNM efforts contribute to the intervention literature because this school-community demonstrated the initiative to develop and implement a program based on local data to address their schools’ bullying issues. The process empowered the school community to explore its own strategies to address bullying and identify evaluation techniques to assess whether or not BNM efforts were effective. It is important for communities to receive the support on their initiatives and use data for monitoring and evaluation, to identify potential interventions that are of cost effective and can be implemented at other schools (Benbenishty & Astor, 2007; Benbenishty, Astor, and Zeira, 2003). There is a need to expand the BNM evaluation to assess for longer lasting changes.