Credit: Nick Romanenko

Rutgers’ Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project works with schools on such issues as harassment and bullying. Pictured are Brad Lerman, project director for Rutgers Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project, and Fred Bilofsky, the project’s southern regional manager.

The calls come in from school districts up and down the state – one day from a concerned high school principal, another day from a middle school guidance counselor. The concern might involve a sixth-grader charged with bullying a younger schoolmate, say, or a spate of students arrested for drunken driving.

That’s the cue for a team of Rutgers staff members to mobilize the resources of the university’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project, which works with more than 630 school districts to promote a non-threatening learning environment for the state’s children.

Under a contractual partnership with the New Jersey Department of Education (NJ DOE). the project serves as both resource and clearinghouse for local districts dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and other ills that prevent schools from doing what they’re supposed to do.

“Kids are not going to achieve academically in an environment in which they don’t feel safe,” said Fred Bilofsky, a regional manager for the project. “We know 160,000 students throughout the country stay home every day for fear of being bullied.”

Now in its fourth year, the initiative operates out of Rutgers' Center for Applied Psychology of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology GSAPP). Its director is Bradford Lerman, a 2003 GSAPP graduate who returned to his alma mater after working in financial services. 

“The Rutgers Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Project is intended to help the department increase its capacity for providing schools and DOE staff with technical assistance, training services, and support for the successful implementation of the requirements under Title IV-A and the department's Unsafe School Choice Option (USCO) Policy,” said Margery Wood, Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Specialist in the NJDOE’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools Unit Office of Educational Support Services Division of Student Services.

Title IV-A of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act is the federal government’s major vehicle for preventing drug abuse and violence in and near schools. Lerman and his colleagues help both public non-public districts apply for funding every year, implement programs, and evaluate their effectiveness.  

The services, available year round, are free.

“We not only assist with the application process, but we also have a larger focus: helping districts with the planning that needs to be in place even before they apply,” Lerman said. “Ours is not a prevention program, but a technical assistance project. We’re in the trenches, reviewing requirements for them – basically, we’re around to assist schools with compliance.”

A key element of Rutgers’ role involves matching school districts in need with programs designed to address that need. Bilofsky said the Rutgers project has reviewed more than 300 evidence-based programs – including training sessions, workshops, and speakers – with an eye to assuring that school districts get the most bang for their federal bucks.

Project members get involved at every point along the way when a district is grappling with a rash of bullying incidents or a perceived epidemic of drug use.

“Our first step is making sure what their actual needs are, helping them understand the data,” Bilofsky said. After asking a series of targeted questions – What behaviors are you seeing? What has the school done to look at the existing climate? Are there core values in place? – project members craft a plan tailored for a specific district, whether urban, suburban, or rural.

The agenda might include sitting down with district administrators to examine existing policies on harassment, intimidation and bullying, then broadening the outreach to include all school personnel including counselors, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers in a half-day workshop outlining those policies.

“We might start with defining what bullying is and what it’s not, for example, and then give basic strategies to use in dealing with the issue,” Lerman said. A possible follow-up might include bringing together members of the greater community to recommend a programmatic approach to dealing with the undesired behavior.

“You cannot address bullying, for example, if you do not address the climate in the schools,” he added.

Although the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation is murky with a new administration in Washington, the Rutgers participants feel confident that public desire for safe schools will keep their project alive. The project is funded a total of $646,665 for the 20-month period of November 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, which covers the fourth and fifth years of its existence, Lerman said.