Harassment and Bullying Prevention Policy

The safety and well-being of children at Flex Academy is of paramount consideration. Children deserve to be protected from abuse, neglect, bullying, harm or threat of harm. Therefore, Staff and Teachers will ensure that children attending our school experience a Christian learning environment that enables every child to know they are special because they are created in the image of God, and should feel safe, accepted and respected.

Flex Academy is involved in ongoing work and training to ensure that students feel respected and connected with our community. This includes protection of our students’ physical safety, social connectedness, and inclusiveness as well as protection from all forms of bullying, regardless of their gender, race, culture, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, while remaining consistent with Flex Academy's faith-values, cultural perspectives and philosophical values.

Behaviour that does not respect the individual’s honour and dignity will be immediately dealt with upon consultation with leadership, staff, teachers and parents.

Because we seek to foster a safe environment for all, Flex Academy will take all reasonable steps to prevent any and all retaliation by a person against a student who has made a complaint of a breach of this policy.

Resource: ERASE is a comprehensive prevention and intervention program that builds on effective progress already in place to ensure consistent policies and practices across all school districts backed by strong community partnerships.  Four different types of bullying are outlined: Physical, Social, Emotional, Verbal, and Cyber.  In addition to providing resources for parents, students and educators, ERASE also provides an Online Reporting Tool for students or parents to report incidents of bullying.   For more information on ERASE, visit the Erase Bullying Website.

Cyber-Bullying and Bullying Prevention

Statement of Purpose

Flex Academy is committed to fostering, through example and guiding practices, an online and physical environment that works to keep students and staff safe from cyberbullying and bullying. Reported incidents will be taken seriously and fully investigated. Any form of cyberbullying or bullying will be confronted. Action to resolve bullying may result in suspension or deletion from Flex Academy social networking, blogging, or school community events.

Definition of Cyber-bullying and Bullying

Bullying is a relationship problem exerted from a position of power, where repeated physical, verbal or social aggression causes embarrassment, pain, or discomfort. Bullying acts may be intentional or unintentional and perpetrated by individuals or groups. Cyberbullying applies to aggressive acts to belittle or defame an individual through repeated digital communications (e.g., social networking forums, emails, websites, blogs, webinar platforms, chat lines, etc.) Cyberbullying and bullying may include threats, name-calling, insults, sexual harassment or racial slurs.

Physical bullying includes all of the above, with the addition of hitting, shoving, stealing, or damaging property when it is in a physical context. Bullying is not necessarily the case in every situation that may result in conflict. Student disagreements, speaking in a perceived aggressive tone, confronting someone's behaviour, misunderstandings, and personality struggles are all examples of normal human interaction that isn't necessarily bullying when there is no evidence of controlling aggressive behaviour.

Student and Parent Guidelines
Teacher and Staff Guidelines
Leadership Guidelines
Resolving Action
Internet Safety & Literacy Tips for Parents

At HCOS our students are encouraged to become wise, digitally capable learners who can search online within boundaries, ensuring Internet safety and healthy learning. With this in mind here are some useful rules for providing Godly education for your new Flex learner.

Guiding your Students Online

To ensure your students feel safe online please follow the suggested guidelines. Look into setting up the following bookmarks for their own special folder:

Preserving Privacy
Possible Hazards
Information on Cyber Safety

Revision #2
Created 28 July 2023 20:08:46 by Ryan McGuire
Updated 5 March 2024 20:21:59 by Ryan McGuire