The respective pieces of legislation are formulated in response to several comments received since the publication of the Commission’s Issues Paper entitled “Bullying: Legislation, Policy or Both?” The focus of the paper was to determine whether a comprehensive strategy for addressing the incidence of bullying should be grounded in appropriate legislation, formulating policies or a combination of both. 

The proposed legislation, which is formulated to complement a national policy on bullying includes provisions which - 

• require every school to formulate an anti-bullying policy;
• identify the provisions to be included in such a policy; 
• holds the school leader responsible for the implementation and oversight of the legislation and any policies made under the legislation to address bullying; 
• require a member of the school staff as soon as reasonably practicable to report to the school leader any act of bullying or act of retaliation witnessed by that member of the school staff, or that has come to the attention of any member of the school staff;
• require the school leader to communicate the results of the investigation to the person who made the report;
• require a school leader, on a quarterly basis, to submit a written report on bullying to the Department, the Ministry and the Education Council;
• provide for the imposition of penalties against a student where there is a failure to comply with an anti-bullying policy; and
• provide for the imposition of administrative and disciplinary penalties against a school leader of any school, a member of the school staff or parent who acts in contravention of the legislation or any anti-bullying school policy. 

Stakeholders and members of the general public are invited to provide their comments on the draft Education (Amendment) Bill, 2019 and the draft Anti-Bullying (Schools) Regulations, 2019.

The legislation may be viewed on the following website: www.lrc.gov.ky or www.gov.ky or a copy may be collected from the Offices of the Commission.