BLAIR, NEBRASKA (2024 November 11, Monday)
Don Harrold, Writer / Editor
blairtoday@mail.com – Facebook
Monday night’s Blair School Board meeting, which had generated significant anticipation due to recent bullying-related controversies, drew approximately 30 attendees, with about half being students required to attend as part of their school curriculum.
The meeting, which began with the Pledge of Allegiance and routine administrative matters, included the appointment of Ginger Fredericksen to fill the vacancy left by Tim Welch’s recent resignation. Welch had previously resigned over what he described as serious concerns with bullying in the schools.
During his portion of the meeting, Dr. Gilson calmly, resolutely, and exhaustively presented the district’s new plan for handling bullying and harassment allegations moving forward. The comprehensive plan includes several major changes to address recent concerns that emerged following a troubling video and parent complaints.
Central to the new approach is a dual reporting system. The first component involves a new reporting form on the school website, allowing direct submissions to the central office. This form enables students, staff, parents, and community members to bypass the traditional chain of command when reporting incidents. Reports can be submitted either anonymously or with contact information and can include incident details, file uploads such as screenshots or videos, and identification of involved parties including victims, aggressors, and witnesses.
The second component involves a new partnership with Boys Town through Safe2Help Nebraska, which provides 24/7 anonymous reporting capabilities via phone calls, texts, or website submissions. This system replaces the district’s previous “Vector” system, which had generated only 20 reports since 2019.
Despite anticipation of a potentially heated atmosphere due to recent allegations of bullying coverups and talk of shocking evidence, the meeting maintained a businesslike tone throughout the proceedings. Of the approximately 30 people present, about a dozen were students attending for curriculum requirements, with adult attendance numbering around 15.
Key Components:
- Immediate investigation triggers with at least two administrators assigned to each case
- Support from legal counsel, law enforcement, and a safety team
- Structured support plans for all parties involved (victims, aggressors, and bystanders)
- Free 24/7 family counseling services
- Enhanced tracking and monitoring system for consistency
- Regular administrative training on investigation techniques
Preventative Measures:
- School-wide assemblies at all levels
- “Second Step” program (K-5) focusing on positive reinforcement
- “Well-Managed Classroom” Boys Town model
- Ongoing staff training on bullying prevention
- Regular parent meetings and communication
- Grade-specific preventative strategies
The district emphasizes continuous improvement and maintains open communication with families while providing comprehensive support services to ensure student safety and well-being in all school-related activities.
Despite recent social media discussions about bullying in Blair schools, the public comment period at Monday night’s school board meeting took an unexpected turn, with speakers addressing entirely different concerns.
The open forum, which followed Superintendent Dr. Gilson’s presentation of new anti-bullying measures, saw no parents or students step forward to address bullying or harassment concerns. Former board member Tim Welch, whose recent resignation over bullying issues had sparked community discussion, was not present at the meeting.
Three community members addressed the board with varying concerns. Aimee Cothran, fresh off her recent city council campaign, delivered an impassioned request for greater transparency regarding a recent incident involving a parent’s arrest at a Blair school.
In a lighter moment, one parent took the opportunity to express gratitude to a teacher, receiving positive acknowledgment from board members.
The final speaker, Pat Boyd, a grandparent with multiple grandchildren in the district, offered measured criticism of the CKLA curriculum, suggesting it prioritized agenda over education. Mr. Boyd said, “As I understand it, CKLA does not qualify as ‘quality instruction’, but it does potentially qualify as indoctrination.”
The absence of bullying-related comments stood in stark contrast to recent social media discussions. While Dr. Gilson’s newly presented anti-bullying initiatives offer concrete solutions for concerned parents, the meeting provided a public forum outside of social media that went unused for this particular issue.
[Editor’s Note: Dr. Gilson’s complete remarks on the new anti-bullying measures appear below.]
FULL TEXT OF DR. GILSON’S REMARKS AT THE November 11, 2024 Blair School Board Meeting.
I just I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. A little over a month ago, there was a video that went throughout our community that was very unsettling, and I think kind of shook us all. At last month’s board meeting, we had several parents who also spoke out, and again, it was very unsettling for us. The safety of students is the primary concern for all of us here at Blair Community Schools, and any and every action we take is with that in mind for to keep our kids safe and unharmed and make sure that our kids feel comfortable being at school and being able to fully enjoy the school environment and feel safe in it.
And so, after last month’s board meeting and after a lot of reflection, we’ve looked at our programs, and I wanted to address some of the enhancements that we’re recommending that we make moving forward. And so, there are seven major points that I want to share with you today, and again, it’s with kids in mind as being number one. First of all tomorrow we have a planned parent meeting at the high school, the meeting will start at 6:30 and the purpose of meeting is really to hear from parents of all age groups, preschool all the way through high school.
Since last month, we’ve been working with Haleigh Carlson, who is a statewide expert from the Perry Law Firm in supporting schools to enact the best approaches to dealing with bullying, and harassment. And so she’s been consulting with our district for that time. She’ll be on hand at the parent meeting along with myself. Again, the major goal of that meeting is to hear from parents. I’ve tried to reach out personally to each of the parents that spoke last month. And then if we’ve heard any reports of harassment or bullying, I’ve personally reached out and talked more about that as we go on. Also, we’re making an enhancement to our reporting system here at Blair. Last month, it was questioned, the chain of command and the procedures that we use.
We do use a chain of command as for proof for almost all of our activities. But in the case of bullying and harassment, we’re gonna make a change. We’re introducing today to you a new bully and harassment reporting form. The link is here. The purpose of this form is so that all students, staff members, parents, teachers, principals, community members can report bullying directly to the central office. So it forwards the chain of command directly to the central office, who, when we get those reports, we’ll talk a little bit about kind of the functions. But I wanna first talk to you about where you can find this form. Tomorrow, we’re gonna have a student assembly, and we’ll educate all of our kids on where they can go.
But on our website, it’s active right now on pull-down menu. But again, all of our kids have one-to-one devices, and we’ll educate our students on being able to be able to report through this system. So what does the form look like? It looks just like this. Again, it’s active and it’s live now, but the purpose is for us to offer a confidential reporting system. We’ve had one before, but when we look back, there were 20 reports of bullying since 2019 on the form that we used before. It was called Vector, and we just, we feel we can do better. And so we’re rolling out two options. And so this form can be anonymous, you’ll see, or you can share your contact information.
You get an opportunity, again, it’s not required, it can be an anonymous report. But you can share who you are. It helps sometimes when we know who the reporter is so that we conduct the investigation. But there’s a lot of detail in this reporting form. For example, relationship to the incident, contact information, again, so that we can reach right back out to the person reporting it. Date of the incident, time of the incident, location, whether it’s at school, off school campus. This gives everyone the opportunity to report that. And then also, you can identify who the victim is, who the aggressor or aggressors are, and then any witnesses or bystanders. And again, you don’t have to report these things, but the opportunity is there for us to look into it.
And then also, this form starts to define bullying and harassment so that we can get an idea exactly of what we’re looking at, so we can, of course, we’ll intervene immediately. But this gives us an opportunity to see exactly what, and it gives the reporter a chance to provide quite a bit of details quickly through this folded list. So that describes the incident. You can also add your own description of the incident and upload any files, because cyberbullying is a reality, not only in our district, but across the state and the nation. And so, if there’s screenshots or things like that that you have, or videos you can add to the file. If there’s any problem uploading it, we’ll fix it right away.
Sometimes we don’t know those things when we’re adding so much data. But again, it’s all part of the form. The form also asks, do you wanna remain informed? And if you mark yes, then we’ll continue to, as long as we know who it is, we’ll continue to let people know. And then at the end, would you like it to be anonymous or not? So, this is an opportunity for both an anonymous and a detailed form. Not only will you get this acknowledgment, you’ll get a stamp of approval from me, meaning it’ll come straight to me. But we’ll also send, again, follow-up information based on the need, based on what the reporter would desire.
Another piece of this is our administrators have, sometimes receive upwards of a dozen or more office referrals in a day. It’s typical in most of our schools. Arbor Park has over 500 students, Deerfield has over 400, the high school has over 700 and Otte has over 500. But what the administrators are dealing with is very complex, and they get a lot of information all the time. What we’ve learned through the past month is that it takes, their gonna need more support when they conduct these investigations to make sure that they get all the facts and then so by the report starting in the central office, we’ll move all of our resources that we have available into the school.
So we’ll help lead the investigation and assign support with bullying or harassment investigations we’ll have at least two administrators working on that. When I talk about resources we have school and police and sheriff we have a safety team but we also have our legal counsel that again you’ll get an opportunity to come to the parent meeting or if you’re a student you’ll get to meet them tomorrow. And so it’s using all the information to support not only the administrative investigation but the counselors and everything and anything everything that they’re going to deal with.
The other thing we’ve provided in the past is structured support plans to support the aggressor and then also the victim, but we’ll do as much as we can to help again support all parties, whether it be the bystander, the victim, or even the aggressor.
We have 24-7 counseling available with our family counseling that’s free for all of our kids and our families, and parents. And then, we have a tremendous counseling staff at each building, and we just want to make sure again that we have greatly supported everyone in ensuring that the situation not only is resolved but it ends. That we ending bullying or any harassment.
In terms of accountability and consistency, since the central office will lead the investigation; they’ll also support and monitor the investigation along the way. So, we’ve enhanced our central report not only reporting system but tracking system, and again, with other resources at our disposal, I believe that will really strengthen our not only our communication to parents, to students, but also ensure that there’s a great consistency throughout the process.
Another resource that we’re modifying – so, we’ve always had an anonymous reporting system; it’s been called “Vector”, and again, we’ve had numerous reports on Vector, but we only saw 20 reports of bullying since 2019. We started questioning: well maybe it’s the system; maybe people don’t know about it; maybe it’s too cumbersome. And so with Mr. Gutschow, Dr. Freudenberg, and then the help of Chelsea Potter, we’re rolling out what’s called Safe2help Nebraska. It’s a system, an anonymous reporting system that’s in place in a lot of schools across Nebraska. It’s aligned with Boys Town. And so you can do an anonymous call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
You can also you can talk to someone live; it’s anonymous. You can also report your name or what have you. But once it’s reported then we get contacted and we’ll put the information into the other form that you saw but this is a way for students, staff anyone to anonymously report any unsafe behavior and again with counselors available with Boys Town it’s just it’s an improved reporting system over what we’ve had.
You can also text – there’s a website that you’ll see on the next slide there’s a phone number and again we’ll educate our students and our staff on this is another option. This is live now and we’ve officially rolled out Safe2Help Nebraska our “Vector” system is still in place for anyone that’s been using that but this is what we’ll convert to beginning today.
Just ongoing preventative strategies: tomorrow, we’ll have an assembly at the high school for 11th and 12th graders. Again Haleigh Carlson will be here to work with our administration. And then at 9th and 10th grade, we’ll have an assembly in the afternoon. Again, the purpose of the assembly is to educate students and really put a stop to bullying. Where it starts, it needs to stop. And we’ll share with our students again a lot of information about preventative things that can be done at the high school. And then on Wednesday, we’ll have a grade-level assembly with each of the grades at the middle school. Now, Deerfield and Arbor Park will look a little bit different; Deerfield has already had an assembly, Arbor Park has scheduled one for November 26.
The middle school is following up with Nebraska Department of Education for a second assembly and will do on ongoing preventative strategies. The elementary, for several years, has had a couple programs that we’ve been proud of. “Second Step” has been in place. It started out in K-2, and then it actually spread all the way to fifth grade. But it’s about positive reinforcement, and it’s an education system to help support students and grade-level teachers, along with counselors, share that with our kids. And then the “Well-Managed Classroom” is actually a Boys Town model that just started this year, at the beginning of the year.
And so, both Arbor Park and Deerfield are using both of those. So, again, we’ve got upcoming assemblies, and we’re looking forward to having those with the students. Again, it’s to really focus on kindness, like our “Second Step” has, like the Well-Managed Classroom” has, and to weed out any bullying, and also give kids a safe way to report it, whether it’s through one of those two options, or just talking to a teacher. And again, what we’re going to talk to staff about tomorrow at 3:45 and 4:30, is a lot about the new reporting system. So again, if they see bullying in their classroom, they can go right to our website and report it immediately, and know that it started in the central office.
If they report it to their principal, then their principal is going to put it into this, and we’ll again supply the resources that we need to, to make sure that the bullying gets stopped, and that the school is supported with all the resources necessary. So, that staff meeting tomorrow will be having a lot to do with bullying prevention, reporting, and just to inform our staff of the enhancements. We also will have ongoing administrative training. They’ll have the first one tomorrow, with Haleigh Carlson and Josh Schauer, and again, a lot of it will be to look at bullying prevention strategies, and then we’re going to look at investigating techniques, because what we’re finding is that a lot of these are very complex, and when I say time-consuming, there’s a lot involved with it, that, again, I think our administrators have all been trained to do investigations, to carry out preventative programs, but we’re going to try to boost that.
And so, Haleigh and Josh will be here tomorrow, and then we’ll continue to follow up and be a resource for our administrative team.
Also, I just wanted to share that this is an ongoing process of improvement and enhancement for us. Just like our safe schools, the safety of the kids is, number one, most important. And we put a lot of effort into making sure our buildings are safe, and again, I want to make sure that we’re putting more effort into making sure the kids are safe inside the schools. And my, apologies to go out to any family or any student that has been affected by bullying.
As I shared, if there’s somebody that’s been affected that you know of, please either use the link or reach out to me personally, and we want to do all that we can to provide all the support that’s necessary to make all of our kids feel safe, successful, happy in all their school activities. And it’s what’s most important to us. Whether it’s traveling on the bus to school, leaving school, or throughout the day, either during their education or part of their co-curriculars, that they’re here. We, our counselors have done an amazing job of supporting kids 24/7. When there’s problems, maybe at home or problems with friends or whatever, relationships, they’ve been there. Just like our administrators have really tried hard to be there.
And just know that we have a lot of amazing staff members, here in Blair, and again, through the years. They’ve gone above and beyond in so many instances. But we can always, again, part of this is just some of the ways that we’re going to always reflect and try to be better. And some of it is through just continuous open communication with families, with students, and just figuring out ways that maybe we’ll learn new ways that could really work better. And then also just, our education, our preventative programs, our awareness programs, to get the bullying to stop before it starts. Then counseling is available all the time. And then, again, just the continuous improvement. So I appreciate the time tonight.
Again, this matter is of utmost concern and importance to me, and to I know, all of our staff. And we’re, we look forward to sharing out information beginning tomorrow to our students, and to staff, and to parents tomorrow night. So if you are able to join us tomorrow night at the High School Auditorium, we invite you to be there. And, again, we’re planning on about 6:30 to 8:00.
