Bullying in schools has been in the news, and on our show, a lot lately. In most schools the policies against bullying are aimed at students, but some school districts are now laying down rules to prevent teachers from bullying other teachers. We read about this in USA Today. You might not think rules are needed to keep adults from bullying each other, but the Sioux City School District in Iowa says bullying among teachers is not rare. Since they adopted anti-bullying rules for employees, teachers have been more comfortable coming forward and talking about the mistreatment they’ve experienced.

In California, Desert Sands Unified schools spent $45,000 on consulting fees and training for its new anti-bullying policy for teachers. The district says as a result, staff absenteeism went down. Teachers and other staff who were scared of being bullied aren’t as afraid to come to work. So what does teacher on teacher bullying look like? It’s similar to office bullying – like being constantly criticized, especially by a manager – or in the case of a teacher, the principal. 30% of workplaces have one of these bullies, who ruins your confidence with a steady stream of criticism – like, ‘that’ll never work’ or ‘you’ll never get a promotion.’ Another form of bullying is when a teacher trashes another teacher behind their back. Or makes life difficult, say by conveniently “losing” all the student permission slips you gave them the day of the field trip. If you work at a school and you’re being bullied, the website TeachersAtRisk.com says there are some things you can do:

• First, start documenting all of it. Write down details including the date, time, location and what was said or done.
• You should also let school administrators know what’s happening. They’re obligated to stop the bullying.
• Finally, meet with your union or federation and get their support. They probably have someone trained to help you deal with the problem.
  
  

Again, the website is TeachersatRisk.com. If you’re not a teacher, try the BullyingInstitute.com.