Students learn best, and their welfare is best served in a school environment free from dating violence, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. 

Students are expected to treat peers and district employees with courtesy and respect, avoid offensive behaviors, and stop those behaviors as directed. District employees are likewise expected to treat students with courtesy and respect.

The board has established policies and procedures to prohibit and promptly address inappropriate and offensive behaviors based on a person’s race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, age, disability, or any other basis prohibited by law. A copy of the district’s policy is available in the principal’s office and the superintendent’s office. [See policy FFH for more information.]

Dating Violence
Dating violence occurs when a person in a current or past dating relationship uses physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse to harm, threaten, intimidate, or control the other person in the relationship or any of the person’s past or subsequent partners. This type of conduct is considered harassment if it is so severe, persistent, or pervasive that it affects a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from an educational program or activity; creates an intimidating, threatening, hostile, or offensive educational environment; or substantially interferes with the student’s academic performance.

Examples of dating violence against a student may include, but are not limited to:

• Physical or sexual assaults; 
• Name-calling; 
• Put-downs; 
• Threats to hurt the student, the student’s family members, or members of the student’s household; 
• Destroying property belonging to the student; 
• Threats to commit suicide or homicide if the student ends the relationship; 
• Threats to harm a student’s past or current dating partner; 
• Attempts to isolate the student from friends and family; 
• Stalking; or 
• Encouraging others to engage in these behaviors.

A flier from the Texas Attorney General’s office includes information on recognizing and responding to dating violence, including contact information for help. The counselor’s office has additional information about the dangers of dating violence and resources for seeking help.

See the CDC’s Preventing Teen Dating Violence for more information on dating violence. Click here for more information.

Discrimination
Discrimination is any conduct directed at a student based on race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, age, disability, or any other basis prohibited by law that negatively affects the student.

Harassment
Harassment, in general terms, is conducted so severe, persistent, or pervasive that it affects a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from an educational program or activity; creates an intimidating, threatening, hostile, or offensive educational environment; or substantially interferes with the student’s academic performance.

Examples of harassment may include, but are not limited to: 

• Offensive or derogatory language directed at a person’s religious beliefs or practices, accent, skin color, or need for accommodation; 
• Threatening, intimidating, or humiliating conduct; 
• Offensive jokes, name-calling, slurs, or rumors; 
• Physical aggression or assault; 
• Graffiti or printed material promoting racial, ethnic, or other negative stereotypes; or 
• Other kinds of aggressive conduct, such as theft or damage to property.

Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Harassment
Sexual harassment and gender-based harassment of a student by an employee, volunteer, or another student are prohibited.

Examples of sexual harassment may include, but are not limited to: 

• Touching private body parts or coercing physical contact that is sexual in nature; 
• Sexual advances; 
• Jokes or conversations of a sexual nature; and 
• Other sexually motivated conduct, communications, or contact.

Sexual harassment of a student by an employee or volunteer does not include necessary or permissible physical contact that a reasonable person would not construe as sexual in nature, such as comforting a child with a hug or taking the child’s hand. However, romantic, sexual, and other inappropriate social relationships between students and district employees are prohibited, even if consensual.

Gender-based harassment includes physical, verbal, or nonverbal conduct based on a student’s gender, the student’s expression of characteristics perceived as stereotypical for the student’s gender, or the student’s failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.

Gender-based harassment can occur regardless of the student’s or the harasser’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Examples of gender-based harassment directed against a student may include, but are not limited to: 

• Offensive jokes, name-calling, slurs, or rumors; 
• Physical aggression or assault; 
• Threatening or intimidating conduct; or 
• Other kinds of aggressive conduct, such as theft or damage to property.

Hazing
Hazing is defined as an intentional, knowing, or reckless act, on or off campus, by one person alone or acting with others, directed against a student for the purpose of pledging, initiation into, affiliation with, holding office in, or maintaining membership in a student organization if the act meets the elements in Education Code 37.151, including:

• Any type of physical brutality;
• An activity that subjects the student to an unreasonable risk of harm or that adversely affects the student’s mental or physical health, such as sleep deprivation, exposure to the elements, confinement to small spaces, calisthenics, or consumption of food, liquids, drugs, or other substances;
• An activity that induces, causes, or requires the student to perform a duty or task that violates the Penal Code; and
• Coercing a student to consume a drug or alcoholic beverage in an amount that would lead a reasonable person to believe the student is intoxicated.

The district will not tolerate hazing. Disciplinary consequences for hazing will be in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct. It is a criminal offense if a person engages in hazing; solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid another in hazing; or has firsthand knowledge of an incident of hazing being planned or having occurred and fails to report this to the principal or superintendent. For more information, please [See Bullying and policies FFI and FNCC for more information.]

Retaliation
Retaliation against a person who makes a good-faith report or participates in an investigation of discrimination, harassment, or dating violence is prohibited. A person who makes a false claim, offers false statements, or refuses to cooperate with a district investigation, however, may be subject to appropriate discipline.

Examples of retaliation may include threats, rumor spreading, ostracism, assault, destruction of property, unjustified punishments, or unwarranted grade reductions. Unlawful retaliation does not include petty slights or annoyances.

Reporting Procedures
Any student who believes that he or she has experienced dating violence, discrimination, harassment, or retaliation should immediately report the problem to a teacher, school counselor, principal, or other district employees. The student’s parent may make the report. [See policy FFH(LOCAL) and FFH(EXHIBIT) for other appropriate district officials to whom to make a report.]

Upon receiving a report, the district will determine whether the allegations, if proven, constitute prohibited conduct as defined by policy FFH. If not, the district will refer to policy FFI to determine whether the allegations, if proven, constitute bullying, as defined by law and policy FFI. If the alleged prohibited conduct also meets the statutory and policy definitions for bullying, an investigation of bullying will also be conducted.

The district will promptly notify the parent of any student alleged to have experienced prohibited conduct involving an adult associated with the district. If alleged prohibited conduct involves another student, the district will notify the parent of the student alleged to have experienced the prohibited conduct when the allegations, if proven, would constitute a violation as defined by policy FFH.

Investigation of Report
Allegations of prohibited conduct, which includes dating violence, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, will be promptly investigated.

To the extent possible, the district will respect the privacy of the student. However, limited disclosures may be necessary to conduct a thorough investigation and comply with the law. 

Suppose law enforcement or other regulatory agency notifies the district that it is investigating the matter and requests that the district delay its investigation. In that case, the district will resume its investigation after the agency’s investigation.

During an investigation and when appropriate, the district will take interim action to address the alleged prohibited conduct.

If the district’s investigation indicates that prohibited conduct occurred, appropriate disciplinary action and, in some cases, corrective action will be taken to address the conduct. The district may take disciplinary and corrective action even if the conduct was not unlawful.

All involved parties will be notified of the outcome of the district investigation within the parameters and limits allowed under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

A student or parent dissatisfied with the investigation’s outcome may appeal following policy FNG(LOCAL).