13 WTHRLawmaker wants to enforce hazing policies
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Rich Van Wyk/Eyewitness News
Indianapolis - An Indiana lawmaker says it's time to push school districts into creating and enforcing hazing policies. The calls come just days after the Carmel-Clay School Board decided to write new guidelines to protect students from inappropriate behavior.
Nearly one in four high school students, researchers say, are victims of dangerous hazing.Yet few schools appear to be taking the problem seriously enough. Student dress codes are often more comprehensive than hazing prevention policies.
Representative Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis) Chairs the House Education Committee.
"There is a problem out there. Something has to be done locally," said Porter.
But most local schools aren't doing enough, according to one hazing prevention expert.
"Hazing is probably number 21 on a priority list of 20. Until something happens - then it rockets to number one," said Dave Westol, Hazing Prevention.org.
A board member of Hazing Prevention.org, Westol says thousands of university and campus groups have sought his advice. But his anti-hazing presentations have reached few school administrators or coaches.
"Everyone seems to think it is happening and when it does, then there is the digging and, 'oh, my gosh,' we have to do something about it," he said.
After a criminal investigation into alleged physical abuse on its basketball team, Carmel promised to rewrite an anti-hazing rule that is less than a line long. Unlike anti-bullying efforts, experts say many schools have inadequate anti-hazing polices.
It wasn't that many years ago that many schools didn't take bullying seriously until the state intervened with legislation and regulations requiring local schools to include anti-bullying policies in their school safety plans.
Porter helped write that legislation, and thinks schools may now need similar help confronting hazing.
"We are about protecting children and if we need to look at legislation or an interim study committee to look at hazing and look at the problems out there, I think it is something the General Assembly should address," said Porter.
Hazing prevention resources
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