School Board Weighs New Policy On Hazing

By Jeff White

Is hazing just part of sports? Is it a commonplace ritual, a rite of passage for neophyte freshmen as they climb their way up to the ranks of upperclassmen? Can it not be seen as a usually harmless, at times even fun, exercise? The Newtown Board of Education Tuesday night answered those questions with an unequivocal “No.”

The school board took up a new policy on hazing for first reading this week, a policy that would remain separate from the district’s already established stance on harassment. Hazing is defined in the policy, as are the proper avenues for reporting and investigating hazing instances. The hope is that a districtwide position on hazing would be in place for all students to sign by the start of school in the fall.

“I think the reason why I settled on a separate policy is that I think it is timely to have a separate policy,” Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed told the school board, referring to a few incidents of hazing in and around Newtown this past year that caught news headlines.

“I think hazing needed to be defined as best we can,” he added.

By taking steps to define a clear stance on hazing, the Newtown school system might be one of the only districts in the state that has taken such measures. Many of the school systems in the area do not have such a policy, including Trumbull, the scene of perhaps the worst recent example of hazing. Several wrestlers at Trumbull high school were expelled after allegedly abusing and sexually violating a teammate.

In Newtown, as the policy is written now, athletes are not singled out as the only students who practice hazing, though Dr Reed did point out to the school board that 80 percent of all hazing incidents involved athletics.

School board members wanted to emphasize that these “rites of passage,” as hazing is so often called, would not be tolerated by any student organization. “No student, teacher, administrator, volunteer, contractor, or other employee of the school district shall plan, direct, encourage, aid, or engage in hazing,” the policy reads.

Joe Blanchard, who graduated from the high school this year, was an active member on the swimming, track, and cross-country teams throughout his high school career. He acknowledged this week that hazing was an issue, and at times even a problem, at the high school.

“For some sports obviously more than others,” he said. “It didn’t really go on in my sports, but as an athlete, I saw it happen a lot.”

For his part, Mr Blanchard took up the issue for his government class political action project, as he sought to find written policies in place in local schools on which Newtown could base its own policy.

“I started calling other schools in the area, Redding, Bethel, Brookfield, Trumbull, and I asked if they had a hazing policy in place,” he explained. “No one did.”

By taking his search onto the Internet, however, Mr Blanchard was able to find a couple of school systems in Minnesota that did. After a few phone calls, he was able to get faxes of several schools’ hazing policies. Attaching these faxes to a cover letter, he presented his findings to Dr Reed.

The 15 hours of work Mr Blanchard put into his political project served the school system well. The different policies he gathered helped build a framework for Newtown’s own version. “It was very helpful to me in forming this,” Dr Reed told the school board.

“I knew they wouldn’t just sit down and write a policy from scratch, they would need some guide,” Mr Blanchard explained.

Although the policy was presented for the first time this week, it was only presented for a first reading; it will remain for board members to clarify the policy’s language, correct some points, and add additional points. It is possible that the board will adopt the policy at its August meeting.

The high school’s Athletic Director Greg Simon acknowledged this week that there is a prevailing thought among many upper class athletes that initiation rituals – making freshmen carry out the water jugs to the fields, or requiring new members of a team to wear their uniforms or helmets around school – is just part of the tradition of being on the team. We had to go through this, the upperclassmen think.

Mr Simon said that he plans to sit down with every sports team in the fall and emphasize that the new hazing policy is a “no tolerance” policy. No initiation, violent or otherwise, would be tolerated, he said.

“Kids have the mistaken impression when they look at the line between hazing and initiation,” Mr Simon said. “We need to get away from the line of tradition. I think if you have a no tolerance policy whatsoever, it makes the line much clearer.”

“Students shouldn’t feel that they are threatened in any way, either playing sports or walking down the hall,” Mr Simon added.