During this week, schools are asked to teach about intimidation and harassment in order to make students more aware of the causes and effects of bullying.
Research has found that when students attack their classmates, it is most often closely tied to the fact that they were mistreated and bullied by their peers.
[5] The New Jersey anti-bullying law of 2002 was one of the most comprehensive policies that not only defined bullying but also guided educators in handling incidents in their classrooms.
[4] Although New Jersey's anti-bullying law was extremely comprehensive in the year 2002, a number of events proved that it was not as strong as it needed to be to protect students.
[3] The first event that began to expose the law's weaknesses was a court case in the year 2007 against the Toms River Regional Schools Board of Education.
[7] The case was brought to the New Jersey Supreme Court who ruled, "that a school district can be sued for damages, under the Law Against Discrimination (LAD), for not responding reasonably to bias-based student-on-student bullying and harassment that creates a hostile educational environment.
In 2009, the Commission issued a report, "There Isn't a Moment to Lose", which outlined necessary legal and policy reforms to improve New Jersey's response to bullying.
According to the Education Law Center, this report "heavily influenced" the creation of the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights.
[8] In addition to the legal and political findings between 2007 and 2009, which exposed the need for a change in policy, there was also a new wave of bullying occurring on the Internet that was not being addressed in the 2002 law.
A majority of teens use the Internet on a regular basis, in chat rooms, on websites, or instant messaging.