Identity Harm Protocol is a protocol that is put in place to help protect students through out the district. This protocol is put in place to make students feel welcome and safe in all parts of the building. With this protocol, students of all backgrounds will feel like they are listened to and have a safe space to share any of their experiences. Identity harm protocol ensures that incidents are handled with care and concsistancy.
This protocol is used to help staff and students respond correctly to incidents of identity harm. Harm can affect any student no matter their background or identity, but identity harm happens whenever a person targets another person or group of people based on any aspect of their identity witch includes race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or based on that person’s abilities. When a student is harassed based on one of those aspects it can impact the learning capability of the students that is why we have the protocol.
“It’s going to help all students feel like they are safe to come to school. So we know that when students don’t feel safe, when they don’t feel like they belong, or if students are just struggling as their truest, they are not accessing learning,” Integration Coordinator Jacquelene Bayless said.
The identity harm protocol is needed so it can make people, feel safe at school. Bullying, harassment and discrimination all make student’s feel unsafe, which leads to an impact on the students ability to learn. With this protocol, once there is an incident there is immediate support and care, the response team puts safety first and then denounces the act, saying that this is not ok within the school. The team goes fact finding, find multiple perspectives on what happened, in order to repair the relationships, this does not mean students will be in a forced relationship, what it means is so that after it happens that students feel safe coming back to school. Then after they check back in with students and family a short while after the incident to make sure that they feel safe.
“We want to make sure that when things are happening at school, so that they know what’s happening in school with their kids, so that they know what steps that the school are taking,” Bayless said.
This protocol is not new. There have been several policies in the past much of this work is not new, but it is grounded in policies that already exist. This protocol is not a new thing it is taking and improving it in areas of communication and consistency.
“Superintendent Dr. Funk was originally the one pushing for this,” Bayless said. The previous work on these policies left Bayless with a “really good outline.”
With this protocol, students can expect to be listened to, taken seriously and provided a safe space. The school will take immediate action to make certain that the students that are part of the harm feel safe and make sure that they are informed along the way of finding out what happens. Families can expect that the incidents that their child are a part of are handled with care and consistency. People can expect the school to immediatly prioritize the safety of the students involved. Families will be engaged thought the process receiving updates along the way and support opportunities.
“I think that it might enable or encourage students and staff to feel like its safe to bring up some issues, and they could expect some concistant follow up,” school nurse Melissa Fischer said.
There are people out there that oppose the identity harm protocol. The main item they disaprove is “what is identity?” The people that disapprove the protocol who are pointing out what defines identity are thinking that identity just meants your sexuality or race which it is, but identity is more than that, identity is all those unique chariteristics that make you, you. For example student’s culture, student’s race, gender, abilities, disabilities, or size of student’s bodies.
“There are some community members who have voiced their concern, and we hear them right. Everybody has that right, but at the end of the day, identity is not just bout race, it’s not just about gender identity. It’s about all those unique chariteristics that make each of us who we are,” Bayless added.
This protocol is put in place to protect all students who are getting discriminated, bullied, or harassed. The district puts this in place to make sure that everyone here feels safe, supported, valued, and ensured that every one has a safe place to share.
