Anti-bullying legislation continues to be worked on in the Iowa House and Senate..

District 19 State Representative Ralph Watts while bullying in any form is wrong, he has some concerns with the proposed legislation.  As presented, the bills allow a school to investigate an act of bullying that occurs off school property, which worries Watts for a couple reasons.

“I can’t imagine the administrators would be real comfortable with that because that puts them in the position of being the policemen so to speak for all the children that may be attending their schools and their behavior off school grounds.  And I can’t imagine that the administrators are going to be real comfortable shouldering that responsibility” says Watts.

So Representative Watts has filed an amendment, removing that authority from the bill.  He says he’s also concerned about the amount of work it could create for the Department of Education.

“It creates a bureaucracy in the Iowa Department of Education to monitor reports that the schools would be required to provide to the department regarding bullying activities and their attempts to curtail it.”

Governor Terry Branstad has said he wants to see an anti-bullying bill on his desk before the end of this year’s session.