House backs anti-bullying bill, 51-18
The House, after much debate both for and against, has voted 51-18 in favor of HB 246, the anti-bullying bill. “I think it’s our responsibility to protect these children,” said the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Patrick McDonald, R-Boise. The bill has a bipartisan group of eight legislative co-sponsors; today’s House vote sends it to the Senate side. After the vote, the House recessed for a lunch break; it’ll return at 1:15, and plans for the afternoon session include suspending rules to take up HB 296, the teacher career ladder pay bill.
House Majority Caucus Chairman John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, spoke out against the bill, saying schools should just deal with the issue. “I don’t know why we would pass legislation asking them to do what they should be doing on their own,” Vander Woude said. “This is asking basically the schools to do it. I don’t know why we have to legislate what the local schools should be doing.” Rep. Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home, said, “I think we’re trying to be too over-reaching.”
Rep. Rich Wills, R-Glenns Ferry, a retired state trooper, spoke in favor of the bill. “This provides training, it provides those skills that they need to make that decision-making process,” he said. “I can tell you if you receive training in … an arena, and you get the skill sets, then you’re far more adept.” He called the measure “a great bill, a great opportunity,” and said, “I’ve got to tell you, if you would’ve been in that committee and listened to those mothers that had those issues, that couldn’t get resolution in those school districts, you’ll find that it is a huge problem.”
Rep. Ryan Kerby, R-New Plymouth, a school district superintendent, said the backers of the bill had a more far-reaching version, and they listened to lawmakers’ suggestions and rewrote the measure in a way that was far more acceptable. “This will bring some consistency,” Kerby said, to how schools deal with bullying.
Rep. Christy Perry, R-Nampa, said her daughter was bullied by another student who would “slug her in the stomach, would throw her into the lockers, would throw her on the ground. … She got to the point where she didn’t want to get out of bed, she didn’t want to go to school, and I couldn’t blame her.” Perry said she tried to work with the school, but got nowhere. “I’m not easily stopped, but I couldn’t get anywhere but round and round and round,” she said. “We got to the point where our daughter was bruised and battered.”
“This is not a punitive statute,” said Rep. Ilana Rubel, D-Boise, who noted that bullying already is an infraction in Idaho. “What this is intended to do is to address intervention, to give the schools and teachers the tools that they need.” Rubel said Idaho should “make our schools places of learning and not places of fear.”
