JACKSON TWP — Seneca Valley School District parents are claiming a lack of caution and abuse within the district has resulted in more bullying and a lack of consequences.

“The school calls themselves bully-free,” said Ginni McDonough, whose son is a student at the intermediate high school, “but none of their actions are bully-free.”

However, the Jackson Township Police chief said he thinks the school district is proactive when it comes to student safety issues.

“Seneca Valley goes the extra mile to ensure safety of students,” said Police Chief Terry Seilhamer.

McDonough said her son was attacked in a bathroom at school about two and a half weeks ago. She said a teacher heard it happening but could not do anything because she isn’t permitted in the boy’s room.

A video of the assault also circulated around the school, according to McDonough, but the school “never did anything about it.”

McDonough said she met with three principals who said they were investigating the matter, but she also reported it to the police because she didn’t know if anything would be done.

Seilhamer explained that the department cannot handle and does not receive reports of most cases of bullying at the school unless the incident has a criminal complaint attached to it.

“We obviously handle incidents over there,” Seilhamer said. “With 3,500 people, you’re going to have some incidents.”

He said incidents are normally reported to the administration, and the police may get involved to review it if they feel it might be something at a criminal level, such as assault or harassment.

McDonough said she didn’t have any complaints about how police were handling the issue but that everything is still “just under investigation.”

“I know others have reported it to the police,” she said. “The police seem to be investigating it, (but) no action has been taken.”

McDonough said she and other parents plan to attend the Oct. 15 school board meeting to continue requesting that the district take further action to prevent cases like this from happening.

If a case achieves the level of warranting charges, Seilhamer said, the police will confer with parents and see if they want to go to juvenile court. In most cases where charges are pressed, the juvenile court enters into a consent decree which gives the minor involved the opportunity to have a “second chance,” so to speak, and have their record expunged after six months.

Seilhamer said the police department has seen four reported cases of bullying with possible criminal acts at Seneca Valley since the beginning of the school year on Aug. 29. Two of the incidents were handled by administration.

“I will say,” Seilhamer said, “that Seneca Valley is pretty proactive.”

Seilhamer said Seneca Valley’s in-house, anonymous reporting line is one way for administrators to gather information about what might be wrong in the school while students still feel protected in telling an adult about an issue they are seeing.

McDonough, however, insists that the school isn’t doing enough. She said there are many parents who have written and are writing letters to the school district to urge them to re-evaluate their anti-bullying policies.

McDonough said the failure of the anti-bullying system was causing students to not report what they see or what is done to them because they might not be believed or might not have anything done to remedy the situation.

“Many kids are taking it as a joke,” she said.

McDonough said the news coverage of a lawsuit two district parents — one of whom is a Seneca Valley employee — filed on Monday on behalf of their son, who they said was wrongfully arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated, harassed and defamed, is just one of many examples of the school’s failures when it comes to bullying.

McDonough said she suggested to the principal that more speakers come to the school to teach about “kindness, humanity and decency.”

“If they aren’t getting these lessons at home,” she said, “they need to be teaching them at school.”

Seneca Valley did not respond to requests for comment.

The Seneca Valley anti-bullying policy was first approved in 2007 and has been reviewed and revised periodically since then.

A new revision to the anti-bullying policy will be up for approval at the next school board meeting. The addendum includes technology as a possible source of bullying and aims to treat social media, images, videos, web posting and electronic messages as liable to the rules set out in the policy.

The district has ongoing activities and events throughout the year as part of Olweus, the bullying prevention program.

For more information about the bullying prevention program, visit www.svsd.net/Olweus.