Judge's Reversal of Bullying Ruling Upheld by State Education Chief

Two years after enactment of New Jersey’s strict anti-bullying law, state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf has for the first time reversed a district’s finding of bullying, saying the incident was simply a more-innocent conflict between two students.

In a decision handed down in late April and posted last week, Cerf found that the Pittsgrove school district’s charge against an eighth-grade student identified as C.H. ran counter to the new law. The student had been accused of bullying after a February 2012 incident in which he shoved a piece of crumpled paper down a classmate’s shirt.

In a case that had seen counter-charges of bullying and at least three different investigations, the Salem County school district said C.H. meant to antagonize the other student and was “disturbing the learning environment and causing emotional harm.”

Cerf upheld administrative law Judge W. Todd Miller’s ruling that while there was an ongoing conflict between the students, the incident did not amount to bullying or harassment as defined in the law.

“The conflict between these students did not contain the serious and aggravating elements necessary to a finding of bullying under (the anti-bullying law); and the factual record only supports a finding of ordinary student conflict rather than the more serious behavior of bullying,” read a synopsis of the decision.

The decision touched on what has becoming a dispute over where to draw the line between a fight or disagreement and an incidence of bullying.

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