Enforced Courtesy : Schools Say New State Law Has Cut Sexual Harassment on Campus

Last year, 16-year-old Andi Baehne sometimes could not make it through a day at Camarillo High School without hearing one of her male classmates comment on her looks.

This year, she has noticed a change.

“They keep their mouths closed more this year than before,” she said. “They’re being a lot more courteous.”

The difference? Andi and some Camarillo High staff point to a new state law that allows schools to suspend or even expel students who sexually harass their classmates.

In response to the law, which took effect in 1993, school districts around the county began in the fall to train teachers and educate students in fourth through eighth grades about what sexual harassment is and why it is harmful.

Halfway into this school year, some school officials say they are still skeptical that the new law is needed.

But many students, teachers and administrators say the law is working.

Under the state law, every school district has formed its own policy on sexual harassment, setting up procedures for students to follow when making complaints.

The policy on sexual harassment gives students a new term to identify an old problem, encouraging them to complain about offensive behavior or comments that they previously may have let pass, some school officials said.

“It’s a title for a problem that didn’t have a title before,” said Kathy Greaves, assistant principal at Camarillo High School. “We’ve had more kids come in and verbalize it and put a label on it. We gave them an avenue to deal with it.”

Since Camarillo High established its sexual harassment policy in the fall, it has handled about six cases of reported harassment, all for verbal rather than physical offenses, Greaves said.

In most cases, she said, school officials don’t punish the youths accused of harassment but instead talk to them to try to make them more aware of their behavior.

Nevertheless, some school officials and students are concerned that the policy could open the door to unfair accusations or disciplinary action against young people who did not intend their behavior or comments to be rude.

Steve W. Stocks, a trustee of the Oxnard Union High School District board that oversees Camarillo High and four other high schools, voiced skepticism about whether sexual harassment is a significant enough problem on campuses to warrant its own policy.

A former high school principal in Oxnard, Stocks said he is particularly concerned that the state law defines “leering” as a form of sexual harassment.

“ ‘Leer’ is going to be a tough one to substantiate,” Stocks said. “What if you were a guy that had a kind of a sneer on your lips that was permanent?”

Some boys at Camarillo High said they have still not figured out when their behavior toward girls may fall under the definition of sexual harassment.

“You can say anything to a girl, and they can say ‘sexual harassment,’ ” 16-year-old Steve Littlefield said.

Fellow student John Caligiuri agreed: “It’s really stressful because you wonder if you’re sexually harassing someone or not.”

Greaves agreed that a comment could be perceived as sexual harassment by one student and a compliment by another.

The key to defining whether behavior constitutes sexual harassment, Greaves said, is to decide how the it was received: “The key word is unwanted .”

School officials at elementary and middle schools around the county are also using sexual harassment policies to make students more sensitive to how their classmates interpret each others’ behavior.

At Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura, Principal Kris Bergstrom said she has disciplined some students this year for sexual harassment, including sending one boy to the school counselor for guidance on distinguishing inappropriate behavior.

Bergstrom said she has noticed some improvement in how the sixth- through eighth-grade boys and girls at the school act toward each other.

But the greatest success so far of the school’s new teaching on the policy is that it has bolstered the courage of students who feel offended by another child’s comments or actions.

“Kids are so sensitized that they’re real quick to say ‘Hey, back off. I don’t want you to do that to me,’ ” Bergstrom said.

State law requires that school districts address the problem of sexual harassment down through the fourth-grade level.

But Simi Valley has extended its instruction about appropriate and inappropriate behavior to all elementary school students, even those in first grade, said Susan Parks, assistant superintendent of instruction.

Some activities that have been common on elementary school playgrounds for many years, such as boys flipping up girls’ dresses, fall under the category of sexual harassment, she said.

The Simi Valley Unified School District has already suspended at least two elementary school students under the new policy, she said, in addition to a few middle and high school students. The suspended elementary children were fourth-grade boys who had played “pantsy” by running by a group of girls and trying to yank down the girls’ pants.

But not all elementary school officials consider some of the games between young children as sexual harassment.

At Montalvo School in Ventura, Principal Marie Atmore said all of her teachers have been trained to keep an eye out for sexual harassment among their students.

But Atmore said elementary schoolchildren are generally too young to engage in sexual harassment.

“At this point, there’s not any girl-boy relationship yet,” she said. “Their biggest tease is to say something nasty about somebody’s mother. That’s the biggest put-down they can do right now.”

Although girls sometimes complain about boys pushing open the door to the girls’ bathroom, Atmore said she treats the problem as the boys being mischievous rather than as sexually harassing the girls.

“They’ve done that since the beginning of time,” Atmore said. “They’re still children and that’s refreshing.”